


Different Games

by maunwocha



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Inception Fusion, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Canon-Typical Violence, Corporate Espionage, Gun Violence, Heist, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Minor Luna/Raven Reyes, Minor Octavia Blake/Jasper Jordan, Multi, Organized Crime, Past Octavia Blake/Lincoln - Freeform, primarily Murphamy if we're being honest here, tell me Arthur and Eames don't make you think of them just a little bit
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:34:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 21,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24393601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maunwocha/pseuds/maunwocha
Summary: Bellamy Blake has been in the high-stakes world of dream extraction for years now, working closely with Clarke Griffin, one of the most talented young extractors in the business. They make a great team, but it's dangerous work, and Bellamy wants out. When an unique and extremely lucrative business opportunity means Clarke might finally get to prove her father's research into inception, Bellamy finds himself saying yes to just one last job. One last job, and maybe then he can give Octavia a better life.Murphamy Inception AU, basically.
Relationships: Bellamy Blake/John Murphy, Clarke Griffin/Lexa, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 34
Kudos: 31





	1. a moth to the flame

**Author's Note:**

  * For [oogaboogu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/oogaboogu/gifts).



> Very, very nervous and excited to debut this concept with you all. Bellamy and Octavia are probably going to be the main focuses of this story, but it's gonna bounce around in perspective and I'm gonna post it as I write it so. You know. Anyway love you thank you for reading, please comment and kudos if you enjoy!
> 
> title from All the Same by Julia Nunes

Bellamy should not be here. He remembers the gun in his waistband and grits his teeth, walking a bit faster.

It’s the early hours of the morning, the approaching sunrise slowly illuminating the horizon as he hurries down the shipyard. What Murphy is doing here or why this is where he asked to meet is beyond Bellamy, but in their line of work, you learn not to ask those kinds of questions. It’s usually better that you don’t know.

Hunting him down like this is a little beneath Bellamy, but these are special circumstances. Clarke had that look on her face, the misty-eyed, determined one she got when she talked about her father as she explained the terms of Lexa Franco’s contract; he knew she was talking about inception before she even said it. They argued about it, of course, because Bellamy couldn’t live with himself if he didn’t, but he knew he wouldn’t win. Damn it. Bellamy was supposed to be getting out, but he knew Clarke could never pass up an opportunity to prove her father’s research correct, and he couldn’t pass up the opportunity to help her. He'd be lying if he said a small part of him wasn't curious about inception, too.

Which is why he’s lurking around a Czech shipyard at four in the morning, looking for Murphy. He’s slippery, not always the most trustworthy, but he’s the second best forger Bellamy knows, and they’re going to need more than just a good thief. If that were the case, he’d get to call up Miller and meet with him over coffee or something to discuss details instead of sneaking around in the dark.

Clarke is in Italy, trying to convince Raven to get back into dream design for one last job, and Bellamy knows she’ll do it. He remembers when he found out about Raven’s injury—she hasn’t done dream work since, and if he knows her, she’s probably aching to go back in. There’s no freedom as sweet. Guilt twists in Bellamy’s gut, and he knows they’re enabling something that’s bad for Raven, especially when she and Luna seem to be so happy with the little life they’ve been building together. How much damage will this job do?

He shakes his head. One more bad thing. One more job, and it’s done.

He hears a noise coming from one of the big warehouses to his right. He draws his gun, approaching slowly.

“Murphy?” he whispers, pausing to listen. Nothing.

He walks closer, squinting in the light of the moon, only noticing the shadow of arms behind him when it’s too late.

Someone grabs him in a firm chokehold and tries to wrestle him to the ground. Bellamy is stronger, but not by much. They wrestle for a moment before Bellamy roars and flings the guy off of him, pointing his gun at him. He hits the ground with a soft ‘oof,’ and Bellamy falters.

“Murphy?” he hisses, and the man on the ground groans.

“Bellamy?” Murphy looks up at him, and Bellamy can finally see his face in the low light. “Shit, why do you have a fucking gun? I almost killed you.”

“Almost killed me,” Bellamy scoffs. “Why did you attack me? Aren’t you expecting—” he asks, tucking his gun back into his pants.

Murphy scrambles to his feet, shushing Bellamy. “Keep your voice down!” he whispers, yanking Bellamy into the warehouse and pulling him into the shadows.

Bellamy makes a small noise of frustration.

“Murphy, you wanna tell me what the hell is going on?”

Their bodies are close together, Bellamy against the wall and Murphy leaning in close, putting himself between Bellamy and the door. Murphy looks different; his hair was longer last time they saw each other, and now he wears a scruffy beard. It looks good, though he is also grimy and rumpled from god knows what.

He puts his finger to his lips, and they hold their breath, listening.

Sure enough, the sound of voices echoes down the shipyard. Murphy looks at him, and Bellamy can’t breathe, because his face is so close, and this all feels very familiar. He realizes he’s missed Murphy.

Wordlessly, Murphy gestures for Bellamy to follow him, and they both drop into a crouch, moving quickly and quietly between discarded furniture and storage containers, keeping to the shadows. The group is closer now; all of them have guns. They look trained.

“Murph,” Bellamy breathes, ducking beside him once again behind a pile of shipping palettes. “Who are they?”

Murphy scowls, shaking his head. “From my last job. It… got all fucked up.”

Bellamy makes a face at that, but says nothing. Great. Really, he should have expected something like this considering Murphy’s instructions for picking him up. Miller doesn’t put Bellamy in these situations, he thinks bitterly as they move once again, this time stopping behind a large shipping container.

“There’s only four of them,” Murphy whispers into his ear. His lips are radiating heat onto Bellamy’s neck. “You have your gun. If we sneak up on them-“

“I’m not wearing a bulletproof vest, are you?” Bellamy hisses back, taking his gun from his waistband anyway. “We should leave.”

Murphy shakes his head. “If you want me to do whatever it is you’re going to ask me to do, you need to help me kill those guys, because if we don’t they _will_ hunt us down and kill us before we can reach the border.”

“Good thing I have a ‘fucking gun,’” Bellamy smiles, but drops it when he sees that Murphy is deadly serious. Actually, he looks terrified, and Bellamy can feel his whole body shaking next to him. It’s only now that he realizes Murphy is favoring his left side, and sees the dark stain seeping through the fabric hastily tied around his right thigh just above his knee.

Oh. Shit. They need Clarke.

“Okay,” Bellamy says softly, placing a hand on Murphy’s shoulder. He peers around the edge of the container and spots the mercenaries making their way towards the end of the yard. “You should stay off that leg.”

“It’s fine,” Murphy snaps. He won’t say it, but Bellamy gets the sense he’s afraid of being left alone.

“Okay,” Bellamy repeats. “Then here’s the plan; we follow them through the warehouses and wait until they reach the end of the yard, then you catch their attention and I’ll take them out. Sound good?”

Murphy rolls his eyes, but nods, and they move out. They fan out, taking separate sides of the large buildings until they reach the end of the property. That weird feeling from before returns as they creep silently through the dark, in sync with one another. It’s almost alarming how easy it is to slip back into this with Murphy.

Bellamy catches Murphy’s eye, sees him nod, then takes aim as Murphy stands up and shouts: “Hey assholes, over here!”

All four of them turn at once, and Bellamy takes four precise, clean headshots before anyone has time to react. The bodies collapse, and the silence that follows swallows the night.

Murphy stands slowly, taking a shaky step forward before stumbling.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Bellamy says, rushing over just in time to catch him before he falls. He must have been running on adrenaline and fear, and now that the threat is gone, everything is catching up with him. They sink to the ground.

“Thank you,” Murphy breathes before appearing to pass out. Bellamy is panting from rushing to catch him, and he wipes sweat from his brow with the back of his gun hand.

He sighs deeply. “God damn it, Murphy,” he leans forward to rest his forehead on Murphy's, just for a second.

He looks over his shoulder at the four bodies lying in a pile behind them, like grotesque puppets with their strings cut; no doubt someone heard the gunshots, and local law enforcement would be there soon to investigate. No time to ditch the corpses, they just had to get out of there.

Bellamy hauls Murphy over his shoulder firefighter style with some effort, and starts walking back to where he left the car.

* * *

Murphy sleeps for a long time. Bellamy wonders how long it’s been since he felt safe enough to sleep deeply. The wound in his leg isn’t serious, but it definitely needs more medical attention than Bellamy is trained to give. He cleaned and rewrapped the wound in clean gauze from his first aid kit before they took off, which was hopefully the right thing to do.

They’re half an hour outside of Amsterdam when Murphy finally comes to. He jerks upright suddenly, looking around wildly before settling down at the sight of Bellamy.

“Bellamy,” he says quietly in greeting. “I forgot. Thanks for the rescue.”

Bellamy grunts, rolling his eyes. “Yeah, thanks for the warning.”

Murphy laughs and looks out the window. “Well, I figured you wouldn’t show up if you thought I actually needed you.”

That hurts Bellamy’s feelings for some reason, and he frowns. What was their last job together? Did Bellamy say something? He shakes his head.

“Well, I needed you. Do you want to hear about the job I’m driving you to or not?”

Murphy purses his lips, but he nods.

“Inception,” he says simply, eyes on the road. He can see Murphy stiffen out of the corner of his eye. “Clarke and I got hired to perform an inception, and we needed a forger.”

“So you called me,” Murphy finishes, nodding thoughtfully. He laughs. “Wait, does this mean I’m the best forger you know?”

Bellamy doesn’t fight his smile, but he isn’t smiling because Murphy is right. “Yeah, yeah, don’t let it get to your head.”

Murphy, very pleased with himself, crosses his arm behind his head and scoots down deeper into the car seat, propping his legs up on the dash. Bellamy wants to snap at him to get his feet off the dash, but he remembers this isn’t his car, and that he doesn’t care, and that it’s Murphy so it isn’t like he would listen to Bellamy anyway.

“I thought you were getting out,” Murphy says, peering at Bellamy. "Whoever it is must be paying good."

Bellamy clenches his jaw. “She is.”

The money for this job is absolutely insane, and Lexa strikes Bellamy as the type who will bankroll literally anything they need to make sure this job goes off without a hitch. It’s most of the reason Bellamy even accepted it. His share will be enough to take care of Octavia for years, no more dream work required for either of them. They could both get normal jobs, start regular, safe lives. Bellamy could get out, get them both out, so long as they do this one last job.

Bellamy looks over at Murphy to find that Murphy is looking at him, and knows they’re both thinking of Octavia.

It’s his fault, technically, that Octavia got into forging. Bellamy had been doing dream extraction for a year after his dishonorable discharge, trying at every turn to hide the truth from Octavia. But that particular job ended very dramatically, and Bellamy was on the brink of death. It was just him and Murphy, hiding out in one of the last uncompromised safe houses and waiting for Bellamy to die. Murphy called Octavia, saving Bellamy’s life but spilling the beans on everything he’d been doing since he left the military. Octavia stayed long enough to watch him survive, learn the truth, then disappeared.

That was two years ago. He doesn’t have a sister anymore: now, all Bellamy has is rumors in the dream share community about the beautiful young forger causing trouble all over the world. He laughs a little to himself and shakes his head. How many damn people does he have to keep track of based on their reputations alone? He needs better friends.

“Octavia is alive,” Murphy says, unprompted. “I just saw her last month in—”

“Stop,” Bellamy interrupts him harshly. “I don’t want to know.”

Murphy holds his hands up in surrender. “Fine. Sorry.”

They sit in silence.

“You know if you’re serious about this, about inception, you’re going to need more than my skills,” Murphy continues, picking absently at the gauze on his leg. “Without a good chemist, you’ll never get deep enough into the dream, it would be too unstable.”

Bellamy smiles wide. Oh, yeah.

He looks at Murphy devilishly. “Why do you think we’re going to Amsterdam?”

Murphy frowns for a moment. “What’s in—” he starts, then realizes. “Oh no, no no no, tell me we are _not_ going to the stoner twins for this one.”

Bellamy laughs at that, the tension from earlier released a bit. “Oh, come on, that’s not very charitable. Jasper and Monty are visionaries.”

“Monty’s a _psycho_ ,” Murphy insists, running his hands through his hair. “Remember when he was testing compounds on me and I got trapped in the dream for a week?”

“Sounds perfect for an inception,” Bellamy continues, smiling wider at Murphy’s grumpy expression. “Come on Murphy, he’s getting his PhD right now, I’m sure he’s worked out some of the kinks since.”

Murphy snorts, then sighs. “On human test subjects, I have no doubt.”

Bellamy just shakes his head. “Man, you really have no idea what they’ve been up to the past few months, do you?”

Murphy just closes his eyes. “Guess I’m about to find out, huh?”

He’s right, they’re almost to the address Clarke texted him five hours ago. A loose, humming anxiety is just coursing through Bellamy right now, and he can’t really shake it no matter how slow he tries to breathe. It’s been hovering around in the air this whole time, the reality of what they are planning to attempt, following Bellamy like a swarm of gnats. Inception got Jake Griffin killed.

“Murphy,” Bellamy says seriously, before he can stop himself. “You don’t have to do this job.”

Murphy sits up and opens his eyes to look at Bellamy, frowning. “I’m being fired? Already?”

Bellamy sighs and shakes his head. He feels very tired suddenly, and remembers the odd hour he woke up to get Murphy.

“You’re not being fired,” he continues, looking at Murphy. “I’m giving you the chance to walk away. This isn’t ‘just some job,’ we could all be killed. Attempting inception puts a huge target on our backs and any time there’s chemical sedation, you run the risk of brain death in limbo.” He pauses, considering whether he actually wants to say this or not before deciding screw it, one last job. “I’m telling you this because I don’t want you to get hurt or killed because of me.”

Murphy scoffs, but there’s a troubled tension in his brows, like he’s considering something. “Bellamy, I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention, but I’m the one who asked _you_ for help. I’m not exactly in the position to say no.”

He sort of deflates in his seat, and Bellamy knows what they’re both thinking: if Bellamy hadn’t shown up when he did, Murphy would have been in much bigger trouble. He probably would have died. He's completely at Bellamy's mercy.

“Yes, you are,” Bellamy asserts gently, eyes on the road. “Look, I’ll even give you some cash to help you disappear or something, if that’s what you want. We already left the country, that’s a good start.”

They stop outside of what looks like an old house, but surrounded by crumbling tenements clearly build as the city sprawl slowly swallowed what used to be here. Bellamy parks in the street and turns to face Murphy properly.

“I mean it, Murphy,” Bellamy says. “You do have a choice.”

Murphy really looks awful. Huge, dark bags under his eyes, dirty skin and clothes that have been that way for what appears to be several days. He even looks a little skinny. Whatever he just got away from must have been pretty serious. The sudden thought of Murphy dying by bleeding out from a gunshot wound in some nasty alley somewhere, all by himself, hits Bellamy so hard his hands shoot forward and grip the steering wheel again, white-knuckled.

Murphy rubs his hands over his face. “How much did you say the pay was again?” His face is that careful neutral mask he wears when he doesn’t want anyone to see him sweat, but it’s never worked on Bellamy.

Bellamy allows a little twitch of a smile. “We’re still negotiating, but it’s good. Damn good. Enough to get out for good.”

Murphy smirks, still giving nothing away. “That your plan? One last big job?”

“So long as nothing goes wrong,” Bellamy replies shakily, trying to calm himself down.

Murphy nods slowly. “I’m in, then,” he concludes, his voice soft and strange.

Bellamy smiles and nods, feeling some tension he didn’t even realize he was holding release in him. There was much less to worry about when Murphy was right next to him, working with him, protected by Lexa’s money. That’s going to help him sleep at night, even if what they plan to do next won’t. Plus, they really do have a better chance with Murphy on the team. He was worth hunting down.

“Good,” Bellamy says, getting out of the car and retrieving his briefcase from the backseat. “I have a surprise for you inside. Come on,” he says as Murphy opens his door, beckoning to the overgrown garden path leading to the back of the house.

He takes one step then winces in pain, stopping to touch his leg. Oh, right.

Bellamy lopes over and slings Murphy’s arm across his shoulder, taking some of his weight easily. “Clarke is up there, she’ll take a look at it for you.”

Murphy is uncharacteristically quiet. “Thanks,” is all he says in return as they make their way into the building.


	2. i have myself to blame

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’ve just signed a very ambitious deal merging parts of my corporation with our mark, Roan Koenig. I’m satisfied with the terms of the deal, but Roan isn’t the only one we need to worry about,” Lexa pauses, seeming to gather herself. “His mother, Nia, still technically holds more power than he does with the shareholders, and I suspect she plans to replace me with her protégé, Ontari. I need to convince Roan to seize power from his mother, and protect my position within the company.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry I really have no excuse. Hope you enjoy the second chapter!

“A dream share speakeasy,” Murphy says to himself, shaking his head and sipping the beer Monty gave him. He’s looking much better after a shower and a meal, wearing clothes also kindly loaned by Monty. “You really are an evil genius, huh, Monty?”

“Hey, we are not doing anything _evil_ here,” Monty says, crossing his arms where’s he’s perched on his shiny brass countertop. “Illegal, maybe, but you’re not exactly one to judge.”

Murphy shrugs, giving up easily. “Got me there.”

Raven smiles at him, and Bellamy can’t help the swell of excitement that rises in his chest. Murphy had been very happy with that ‘surprise,’ pulling Raven into a very dirty and smelly hug despite her swatting hands and protests (“Hug me after you _bathe_ , Murphy!”). Clarke even came over to lay a welcoming hand on Murphy’s shoulder, and they seemed happy to see each other. Now they’re all scattered around in Jasper and Monty’s loft office, ready to go over the plan all together.

Bellamy can’t lie, it’s a _really_ cool place. Monty has all sorts of plants growing all over the space, and it’s lit with these warm brass-shaded bulbs that bathe everything in this dreamy glow. It’s so the type of space the guys would make together, sitting on top of their bizarre business.

“No offense, but what is she doing here?” Murphy asks abruptly, pointing the bottom of his beer bottle at Lexa where she stands in the corner. She seems very severe and serious to Bellamy, unreachable. He supposes that’s on purpose. Can’t imagine staring someone like her down in a boardroom setting. “We don’t have room for tourists on this job.”

Clarke intervenes quickly.

“Lexa is going in with us,” she says firmly, moving to physically place herself in between Murphy and Lexa. It’s so classic Clarke that Bellamy rolls his eyes. “We’re going to need her help with this mark. For an inception to take, you have to know the person you’re trying to inspire very well. Otherwise the whole idea collapses, and you fail.”

A taught, loaded silence fills the room.

Jasper whistles low. “We’re really doing it then. We’re really gonna try it.”

“Not just try, Mr. Jordan,” Lexa says coolly, coming to stand next to Clarke. Bellamy is blown away by her confidence. If it’s an act, it’s a damn convincing one.

“I’ve just signed a very ambitious deal merging parts of my corporation with our mark, Roan Koenig. I’m satisfied with the terms of the deal, but Roan isn’t the only one we need to worry about,” Lexa pauses, seeming to gather herself. “His mother, Nia, still technically holds more power than he does with the shareholders, and I suspect she plans to replace me with her protégé, Ontari. I need to convince Roan to seize power from his mother, and protect my position within the company.”

For someone so young and with so much power, so much to lose, Lexa seems to show absolutely no fear at all. But if he looks closer, Bellamy can see the cracks. Fear is why she’s here, making this insane gamble on something no one has ever confirmed is even possible. Well, no one other than Jake Griffin, maybe, but anything he might have told them died with him.

Bellamy knows this part of the plan already, has already done preliminary research on everyone Lexa is talking about, so he sips his beer and glances over at Murphy, now smoking a cigarette. Smoke curls in the air around his head.

“Why inception?” Murphy asks, leaning forward in his spot on Monty and Jasper’s big brown couch. “I mean, I don’t know, why not just do things the old-fashioned way and blackmail him or something?”

“I made enough compromises signing the damn contract in the first place, I won’t allow myself to get wedged out of my own projects because Roan is too afraid to run _his_ business himself,” Lexa snaps, clearly frustrated by this line of questioning. “He’s the one I made the deal with. I want to preserve our good relationship, and I want to get what I want. Inception gets me both.”

Bellamy and Lexa lock eyes, and he realizes something; this is Lexa’s ‘one last job.’ She’s terrified that this isn’t going to work, but what is she going to do, beg? She’s right: this is her only option if she wants to get her way and protect both her public image as the face of her company _and_ her interpersonal image with Roan. In that silent moment, that look they share, an understanding passes between them; get the job done, no matter what. Failure is not an option.

Bellamy stands up, heading over to Monty’s desk where Clarke left the files they printed earlier. He starts handing them out to the team.

“This is some of the preliminary research I’ve done on Roan, Nia, and her apprentice Ontari,” he explains. “I haven’t had much time with it yet, so Lexa knows more than me about most of this. From what I understand, Roan’s relationship with Nia is… tense.”

Lexa smirks, and it looks uncharacteristically soft on her. “I’d say that’s an understatement. The two weren’t even on speaking terms until last year. How you manage running a company with someone who refuses to speak to you, I’m not sure.”

“So then who’s this ‘Ontari?’” Raven asks, looking through the files with drawn brows. “How does she play into all this?”

“Nia started grooming her for control of the company after her falling out with her son,” Lexa says, crossing her arms and tossing her long hair over one shoulder. Bellamy catches the way Clarke tracks this movement, her eyes lingering on Lexa’s neck. He hides a smile. “After their reconciliation, Roan assumed Nia would drop her, but she hasn’t. He and Ontari have been working together under her, unhappily, ever since.”

“She still doesn’t believe in him,” Jasper remarks, flicking slowly through the files without really reading. “Even though they’ve made up, she doesn’t trust him to run the business at all.”

Lexa nods. “Roan knows it, too. Everyone does.”

“Jesus,” Raven whispers, frowning. “Then the relationship to Ontari is just as important as his relationship with his mom.”

Lexa nods, impressed. “That’s right. Ontari is critical.”

Murphy stands, nodding and extinguishing his cigarette in one of the many ashtrays scattered around. “Then I need to get into that office, learn what I can about how this dynamic works in reality,” he looks at Lexa. “Think you can help me do that?”

Lexa looks at him, measuring him up. “If you can handle your documents, I can get you in the door. They say you’re one of the best, so I assume that won’t be a problem.”

Murphy laughs and looks at Bellamy. “Is that what ‘they’ say?” he shrugs, spreading his arms wide. “Well, who am I to argue? Don’t worry about the papers, boss. Might need some new digs, though,” he smiles, tugging at the soft old t-shirt Monty loaned him.

Lexa nods. “We’ll get you a suit.” Something in her expression betrays fondness, like Murphy is amusing to her, and Bellamy smiles to himself. Another victim of Murphy’s inexplicable charm, in the early stages.

“Sweet,” Murphy says, spinning on his heel. He’s still keeping off his right leg, but it clearly isn’t hurting like it was before. “I’m gonna go to sleep now.”

Monty perks up. “Oh, okay. There’s a futon in the back room, I can show you,” he says, beckoning Murphy to follow him as he slips through the door and down the narrow hallway.

Murphy casts one last look over his shoulder, eyes only for Bellamy.

“Night, night.”

Bellamy casts his eyes down, not wanting to rise to Murphy’s teasing, but can’t stop himself from responding gruffly, “Go to sleep, Murphy.” He tries to ignore the burning in his cheeks.

The forger’s laughter echoes down the hallway as he leaves.

“While Murphy recovers,” Clarke says, stepping forward quickly. “The rest of us can get to work. Raven, Jasper, you’re with me; I want to talk about dream levels, and what the plan is for compounds.”

Jasper shakes his head, hands up. “Oh, no, I’m not the expert. Really, I’m more like a guinea pig. You know, moral support. You guys should wait for Monty.”

Clarke smiles a tight little smile and flicks her eyes nervously at Lexa, but nods. “Alright, fine. You help Bellamy and Lexa with their research, Raven and I will wait for Monty.”

Bellamy nods, accepting this plan, and sits down at the coffee mug-ringed dining table. Lexa pulls up a chair next to him and sits. Bellamy is once again struck by how elegant she is, how her power just pours out of her in every subtle motion, and his fear of her is renewed.

Jasper sits and starts actually looking through Bellamy’s light files on Roan as Monty comes back into the room and ushers Raven and Clarke back downstairs, down to the speakeasy.

“Bellamy,” Lexa says, suddenly solemn. “Do you mind if I leave you to it?”

There’s something, some flicker in her eye, that makes Bellamy get it. “You want to try Monty’s compound before the job.”

It’s a guess, but Lexa nods.

“Go ahead, Ms. Franco. I can ask you more about them later,” Bellamy assures her. Nothing about this is surprising; considering the money Lexa is willing to invest in this endeavor, and especially since she’s now coming with them into the dream, it follows that she’d want to know what she’s getting into firsthand. What is surprising is when she sets one delicate hand on top of his, leaning forward.

“You can just call me Lexa,” she whispers, shooting a dumbfounded Jasper a conspiratorial wink and leaving both of them with their mouths hanging open stupidly. She sweeps out of the room, and Bellamy lets out a little laugh.

“We are surrounded by women who could kill us,” Jasper mutters, half to himself, running his hands through his wild hair and leaning back in his seat. “Like, _so_ easily.”

Bellamy thinks of Octavia, of their mom, of Clarke, and claps Jasper on the shoulder.

“It’s the only way to live, my friend.”

Bellamy pulls his laptop closer to him to get to work.

* * *

“That bitch is fucking crazy,” Murphy declares, storming into the loft and practically ripping his tie off, tugging and fiddling with it while his hands tremble. Bellamy turns in his barstool to face him, still too stunned by his sudden reappearance to do anything other than look at him.

Murphy’s been gone for three weeks now, shadowing Ontari as an intern in Nia’s head offices in Germany. The dream levels were all mostly finalized, the sedative compounds are being prepared, and Bellamy _had_ been worried about Murphy’s proximity to the Czech Republic, but it seems like his concern was misdirected. Murphy rips his suit jacket off and throws it across the room, falling into the big leather couch with a huff.

“Nice to see you too,” Bellamy says, standing up. “What the hell happened out there, Murphy?”

Murphy drags his hands over his face and groans. His hair, a little messed up now, is pushed back out of his clean-shaven face, and Bellamy can see the veneer of that young, eager new intern everyone else saw in Nia’s office slip away. A tired, shaken John Murphy takes his place.

“That man’s relationship with his mother is much worse than we feared,” Murphy elaborates, consciously trying to slow his breath. “And Ontari may be a true psychopath.”

Bellamy frowns. “Are you okay?” He sits down next to Murphy on the couch gently.

“No,” Murphy croaks, looking away.

“Do you… want to talk about it?”

Murphy shakes his head, pulling out his cigarettes with still-trembling hands and sticking one in his mouth. “It’s fine. Let’s just say I’m gonna have plenty of material to impersonate Ontari to Roan once we’re under.”

Bellamy sees the thread for what it is and takes it, trying to ignore how shaken Murphy looks. “Yeah? You caught some interactions between them?”

“Plenty,” Murphy says, puffing furiously on his cigarette. He probably had to cut back while undercover. “Imagine the most toxic sibling rivalry you can on steroids, and that’s _something_ approaching the dynamic between Roan and Ontari. I don’t think they’re capable of interacting without throwing veiled insults at each other or undermining the other in front of Nia. It’s honestly impressive,” he admits, looking at something far off in the distance.

Bellamy considers this. “We can work with that, right?”

Just then, Lexa breezes into the room. “Murphy,” she says in a tone approaching bright. “You’re back.”

There’s been a change in her, these past few weeks. Really, it all started the night she and Clarke tested Monty’s compound in the speakeasy. There was some sort of understanding between them after that, and they started spending more time alone together, off in the corner muttering about who knows what. It’s been interesting, seeing Lexa open up a little bit. Clarke, too. Bellamy finds he enjoys her easy, teasing sense of humor, the way she always manages to make Clarke smile even with the enormous pressure she’s under. Everyone knows how high the stakes are, but Lexa’s calm assuredness is as infectious as her soft smile, and her money has made them all very comfortable the past few weeks. She seems like someone else entirely from the distant woman that Bellamy introduced himself to a month ago.

They’re really starting to feel like a team. This is really starting to feel possible.

Murphy regards her with a sort of grimace. “You weren’t kidding about Ontari,” he says, snuffing his cigarette. “I’m glad to be back.”

Lexa looks pained. “You see now why this is so important to me,” she responds, sitting across from them in Jasper’s favorite armchair, tucking her bare feet underneath her. “You don’t have to believe me, but I care about what happens to my company and my employees. It’s not just about the money, or the power. I have a responsibility to these people, to our mission.” Her expression darkens. “I know I don’t have to explain to you why someone like Ontari must not gain access to my money, power, or people, John.”

Bellamy is transfixed, immediately aware that Lexa and Murphy are having a separate conversation that he is no part of. He feels compelled to reach for Murphy, but stifles the impulse, rubbing his palm on his pants instead.

Murphy nods, impassive. “She _really_ hates you,” he laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “An intern was reading an article about you and Ontari happened to walk past her computer. She yelled at her for like ten minutes.”

That makes Lexa smile, a small, sneaky thing. “We were rivals in school,” she admits, unfolding herself to prop her elbows on her knees, fingers clasped loosely together. Bellamy wonders how expensive the skinny tennis bracelet around her wrist is. “If I only knew then what I know now…” she trails off, shaking her head. She’s smiling still, but there’s something menacing about it now.

Before either Bellamy or Murphy can respond, Clarke pops her head into the room.

“Lexa,” she says, then notices she’s not alone. “Oh, Murphy! You’re back.”

Murphy nods, clearly trying to be nice. “I am,” he manages, offering Clarke a limp wave. She smiles at him.

“Lexa,” Clarke repeats, immediately returning to the task at hand. “Raven and I need to go over the rest of the venue details with you. Do you mind?”

The plan, for now, is to lure Roan to what Lexa will tell him is a swanky executive spa retreat, then dose him and enter the dream when his guard is down. Bellamy has to admit, it feels a little underhanded. Not that any part of this was particularly honorable, it just seems a little shady to mentally tamper with a guy who thinks he’s just gonna chill in a sauna wearing a mud mask for a few hours. Feels a little like attacking someone while they’re on the toilet, or something.

“Not at all,” Lexa replies, her expression returned to normal. As she rises to join Clarke, she rests a hand on Murphy’s knee. Bellamy tries miserably to ignore Murphy’s small flinch at her touch. She says nothing, just looks at him, but Murphy seems to understand and nods.

She and Clarke leave the room without another word.

“That’s nice,” Murphy murmurs, beckoning his head in the direction the two of them just left in, referring to Clarke and Lexa. “Right?”

Something painful and sweet all at once overcomes him, and Bellamy leans back into the couch, stupid smile creeping ever so slowly across his face. It _is_ nice. It’s been so long since Bellamy has seen Clarke like this, so full of life and dedicated to the job. Jake’s legacy hung over her head like an axe sometimes, it felt like, but now that they’re finally confronting his work head-on, something has come alive in Clarke. There was truth to what Lexa said; their actions here will have wider consequences than Roan’s relationship with his mother.

“It is,” he agrees quietly, fondness obvious in his voice.

He’s aware very suddenly that they’re alone, and very close together on the couch. Bellamy can feel Murphy’s body heat where he’s sitting inches away from him, tries to focus on anything else. It’s always been there, this _something_ between them, but this whole “trusting each other” thing is a new element to their relationship. They were enemies before they were friends, so it was easier for Bellamy to ignore the slope of Murphy’s brow, the way the air between them seemed to shimmer with something alive when they were near each other.

Bellamy wishes he could say spending three weeks apart helped, but instead he found himself thinking of Murphy at least once every day, wondering if he’d been apprehended by border police or shot dead by the people looking for him. Murphy would probably be insulted if he knew, taking it as Bellamy doubting his abilities, but that wasn’t it at all. Clarke and Lexa just made everything worse, circling each other like songbirds. Inexplicably, it made Bellamy think of Murphy, and then he would get angry because it made him think of Murphy, and then he needed to study his notes again or get even more pissed off. It was agony. He really missed him.

Bellamy wants to express this, or at least say _something_ , because it also seems like Murphy didn’t have a particularly pleasant time. They were only able to text over the secure line a few times, but each time Bellamy checked in Murphy was not happy.

He looks at Murphy then, his tie stretched at the collar of his wrinkled shirt. Fine chest hair peeks through the opened buttons at the top. Murphy catches him looking, and they lock eyes.

Bellamy is so sure that something is going to happen, but Murphy’s eyes flick to the doorway behind him and everything falls apart.

He hears her footsteps and before she even opens her mouth, he knows it’s her.

“Bellamy?”

He closes his eyes. He can’t breathe. He counts to three, then turns to face her.

“Octavia?”

And it really is her, standing there in the doorway, bag slung over her shoulder. Her hair is darker than when he last saw her, just a little, and her features are sharper. Meaner. She looks deadly and beautiful, and Bellamy wants to cry.

There’s the thunder of footsteps on the stairs. “Octavia, I told you not to go—” Jasper is shouting, but stops when he sees he’s too late, they’ve seen each other. “Oh, shit.”

Oh, shit, is right.

Bellamy is on his feet.

“Jasper, what the hell is this,” Octavia hisses, furious. She looks at Bellamy, eyes fiery. “What, are you following me now?”

Bellamy scoffs in disbelief, but his voice breaks, betraying the pain Octavia just caused. First time they’ve seen each other in years and this is all she has to say. He can feel Murphy staring at him from the couch, knows he saw how much damage Octavia just did, and closes his eyes.

Bellamy flares his nostrils. “I didn’t know you would be here,” he asserts with a tremor in his voice, feeling defensive. He looks at his sister once again, and a traitorous tear slips down his cheek. “I didn’t even know you were alive.”

Murphy knows that’s not true, but says nothing. Out of the corner of his eye, Bellamy sees him worrying at his totem, a poker chip. Can’t blame him. Bellamy is struggling to accept this is reality, too.

“So what are you doing here then,” Octavia demands, crossing her arms. She really isn’t giving Bellamy an inch.

Bellamy opens his mouth, but he can’t find anything to say. He can’t come up with a convincing lie on the spot, and even if he could, he wouldn’t have the guts to say it. He watches as Octavia looks between him and Murphy, then at Jasper, and realization colors her expression. Shit.

“Oh my god,” she says slowly, shaking her head. “You’re on a fucking job right now, aren’t you?”

“Well, what are you doing here?” Bellamy splutters, already embarrassed at the cheap shot before he’s even finished saying it. It’s confirmation enough for Octavia, who starts laughs to herself and punching her hand like she wants to hit him, but she won’t.

She growls. “I’m here to see my—” she stops, looking at Jasper. “To see Jasper. And Monty,” she corrects clunkily, expression hardening once more. “Not that it’s any of your business.”

God, this is relentless. Bellamy’s heart might crack in half right there at the enormity of all that he doesn’t know about his baby sister anymore, of everything that he’s been missing while she’s been gone. He’s a professional, damn it, so he doesn’t open his chest up and sob. He locks it down.

“I am here on a job,” he admits, jaw tight. He can’t look at her. “This _last_ job, O—”

Octavia erupts in a screaming growl and pulls at her hair, then throws her hands up to the sky. Everyone in the room recoils at the outburst. “Oh, _spare me_ , Bellamy!” she shouts. Her eyes burn into him. “Do you even hear yourself?”

She stops, overcome with tears. Jasper looks torn for a moment before stepping forward to rest his hand on her shoulder. Octavia rests her hand on top of his, and Bellamy looks away. He can tell that Murphy is looking at him, waiting to see how he will react. God, Bellamy is so fucking embarrassed. Three weeks away and he comes back to _this_. Welcome home, Murphy!

“It’s always ‘one more job,’” Octavia continues through her sobs. “It’s _always_ ‘one more bad thing.’ But it never _is_ ,” she weeps, voice breaking. “It never is, do you understand?”

Bellamy steps back like she’s slapped him at that one. He can’t speak, can’t move, or everything will shatter like porcelain and he’ll collapse. He can’t do that right now, right here. He doesn’t have time to fall apart, they’re supposed to incept an idea in a man in a week. But it’s O, and he hasn’t seen her in so long, and she _hates_ him, and she’s right.

Every terrible thing he’s ever done was to protect her, to help her. Bellamy thought for a long time she hated him because she couldn’t see that, but now it strikes him that maybe she does know, and she hates him anyway.

“Octavia,” he says, sounding pathetic even to himself.

Her face screws up in agony and she whips around, running out the door and skipping down the stairs two at a time. Finally, he allows his tears to fall, letting a broken sob escape.

“Bellamy, I’m sorry—” Jasper begins, stepping toward him.

Bellamy waves him away. “Go,” he says, voice thick with tears. “Take care of her. She needs it.”

Jasper nods and rushes out of the room after her, leaving a sobbing Bellamy behind with Murphy, who has been sitting silently on the couch this entire time.

He rises slowly to his feet, eyes on Bellamy, who’s got his head in his hands and is openly weeping now. Bellamy can’t focus on whatever shame he should be feeling about how completely unprofessional he’s acting. It’s nothing Murphy doesn’t know, anyway. He’s been in their lives for a long time now.

Soft fingers wind around his wrists and pull his hands away from his face. When Bellamy opens his eyes, Murphy is in front of him, looking at him plainly. He looks sad, too.

“Who’s going to take care of you?” he murmurs, so quiet Bellamy barely hears him. It’s only when he looks into Murphy’s clear eyes that Bellamy understands what he said, and tears spring to his eyes anew.

He doesn’t have an answer to that question. Maybe Clarke, once… Bellamy stops, pulls his hands from Murphy’s grasp to wipe tears from his face, thinking about Octavia’s words. _Do you hear yourself?_

Murphy’s here now. He’s standing right in front of him, holding him while he cries. Bellamy reels at the new meaning to Murphy’s question, the revelation that _Murphy_ wants to take care of Bellamy.

“I…” Bellamy starts, nonsensically reaching out to rub the fabric of Murphy’s shirt between his fingers, then realizes what he’s doing and wraps his arms around Murphy’s middle. It takes a moment, but eventually they relax into the embrace, and Bellamy rests his cheek on Murphy’s shoulder. He can feel his tears soaking into the fabric.

“I’m sorry,” Murphy whispers to him, his hand coming to rest on the back of Bellamy’s head, holding them close together. “I’m sorry, Bell.”

Bellamy can’t say anything. He just holds Murphy, and he cries.


	3. pre-programmed to live for somebody else

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Murphy doesn’t say anything else, and he doesn’t have to; Bellamy heard him loud and clear. He squeezes Murphy’s hand in his.
> 
> “We can talk when I’m finished with Raven,” he manages finally, releasing Murphy to swipe at his eyes. “About Octavia, and about…” he pauses, looking at Murphy through his lashes, throat tight. “About us.”
> 
> Murphy steps closer, and his expression shifts. Everything shifts. “Us?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm just plain nervous about this story lads, I care very much about it and I hope you're all enjoying it. As always I appreciate any and all feedback, and hope everyone is having a lovely day! Thank you for reading!

Bellamy awakes to light streaming through the broken wooden blinds hanging half-off the window frame in Monty and Jasper’s backroom. It appears to be a sort of storage room, filled with dusty boxes of random crap and furniture placed with little care. He slept on the small futon there, too emotional and ashamed to rejoin everyone in the hostel last night.

He remembers everything and groans, covering his eyes with his hands and curling smaller under the thin blanket Murphy draped over him some hours ago.

 _Murphy_. That was… unexpected, but maybe it shouldn’t have been. Bellamy smiles to himself, just a little, under the blanket where no one can see.

He thinks about Murphy holding the back of his head in his hand, about Murphy’s lips pressed firmly into Bellamy’s neck as they stood there in each other’s arms, bodies close together. Bellamy pulled away after a while, and when he did, that sureness from before, that they were about to kiss, returned.

Only that’s not what happened. Murphy just studied him, still holding him, then suggested he lie down in the spare room. The disappointment, on top of everything else that night, was crushing, but in retrospect he’s glad Murphy wouldn’t kiss him in that state.

Eventually, he checks the time and rolls off the futon to rejoin the rest of the team working. He looks down at himself and, well, maybe he’ll join them after he has a shower and changes. They still have another month until Roan and Lexa’s lawyers are supposed to meet and finalize the contract, and a few days until the job, so there’s no rush. He’ll go back to the hostel quickly to freshen up.

But Murphy’s voice is bouncing down the hallway, and Bellamy can’t help but stop in the doorway of the loft on his way to the stairs.

They’re on one of the many couches in the room, bent over papers on the coffee table. Raven is leaning into Murphy’s space to gesture to the notes in front of him, looking both affectionate and frustrated, like he’s made a joke about something she wants to make sure he gets right. He notices her ponytail is tucked into the collar of her sweatshirt and slides a comfortable hand across her neck to free it, running his hand down her hair just a bit before he releases her. She smiles, smacking his hand away, and Bellamy can see it; there’s something in the air between them, too. It’s in the light flush in Raven’s cheeks, the way their bodies are tilted in toward each other, the way Murphy’s teasing smile creases his eyes just a bit too much, betraying his sincerity.

It doesn’t make Bellamy jealous, but it still stings by fanning that now always-burning flame inside that makes him want to draw Murphy into him and kiss him and kiss him and kiss him and never stop. Suddenly it’s like he’s paying attention to him in a way he wasn’t before, noticing all these things Murphy has been doing this whole time. Everything seems different and the same all at once.

Murphy notices him then, and though he tries to make it look natural, he rises quickly to his feet and out of Raven’s personal space. Bellamy smiles at him.

“Bellamy,” he says in greeting, and is that a blush in his cheeks? “’Morning.”

Raven turns, unaffected by Murphy. “Hey, Bellamy,” she mimics, her voice gentle. “You sleep okay?”

Her time out of the game is showing, and absurdly, it makes Bellamy smile even more. ‘Did you sleep okay’ is not the kind of question to ask someone in dream share, for all the ways the work can destroy your body’s natural sleep function. In Bellamy’s case, his dreams can’t hold shape without a PASIV, without the somnacin to give them structure and clarity. At best he sees vague shapes, impressions of places or people or ideas, but nothing he can ground himself with. Compared to work, it always seems like he wakes up moments after closing his eyes, no matter how long he sleeps. His brain has become dependent. He never sleeps okay.

Raven seems to realize her mistake, though, and makes a little face. “Sorry, I just meant— you slept here, so I was just…”

“It’s okay, Raven,” Bellamy assures her, stepping into the room to join them. They’re in the corner dedicated to designing the levels, what has essentially become Raven’s ‘office.’ “I’m just ready to get back to work.”

Murphy and Raven share a look, but mercifully allow him to pass right over the topic of last night completely.

“Well,” Raven starts slowly, picking through some of the papers scattered on the table. They look like notes on Roan, in Murphy’s terrible handwriting. “Murphy and I were just talking about my designs for the dream levels, how we’re going to integrate what he found. He got a lot of good stuff while he was spying,” she says, smiling at the man in question.

Murphy scoffs, resting one hand on his chest in mock offense. “Calling it ’spying’ is a little reductive.”

He’s still standing, separated from Bellamy by the couch Raven is sitting on. Bellamy can’t stop himself from looking, obsessed with how different Murphy manages to look from moment to moment. The grungy, boot-wearing forger in front of him is such a stark difference from the suit-clad intern that stormed in just yesterday.

Raven catches him. “Do you… want to go over the dream levels?” she says, leaning forward into his line of sight, eyebrows raised.

Bellamy flushes and tries to recover. “I, uh… yeah, yes, I do. I just wanted to shower first,” he explains, gesturing at his rumpled clothing. He hasn’t looked at his hair, but it probably also looks insane. His face is scratchy with stubble.

Now it’s Murphy’s turn to look at him, and Bellamy tries to focus on Raven instead. It makes him nervous, how Murphy can unleash something in him with just a look.

“Fine,” she says, turning away. “Come back when you’re clean. And bring coffee.”

Murphy laughs and Bellamy just shakes his head, turning and walking back toward the exit.

“See you soon.”

He’s halfway down the second floor steps when he hears footfalls behind him and turns to find Murphy on the stairs. Morning sunlight drapes itself over him, streaming in from the window in the stairwell and illuminating him in a sort of hazy glow. Bellamy can’t speak for a moment.

Murphy’s expression is pensive, like he’s considering how to say something.

“What is it?” Bellamy finally manages, sounding a little gruffer than he intended. Mostly he just sounds tired.

“I,” Murphy starts, then stops, rubbing his neck. “I talked to Octavia last night. On the balcony.”

Bellamy’s heart sinks straight through his feet and into the ground. He blinks, fighting tears, not quite ready to hear her name out loud, to think about all of this again and consider the meaning of his words. If they talked on the balcony, it was after he went to sleep. She came back to the speakeasy after she left. She came back. To talk to Bellamy?

“ _Oh_ ,” is all he can manage.

“And if you can’t talk about it right now,” Murphy continues, eyes tracking the way Bellamy’s hands are starting to tremble. “We don’t have to. But I think you deserve to know what she said.”

Bellamy opens his mouth, but when nothing comes out, he nods instead, eyes to the floor. God, he’s pathetic. He’s shaking, now.

“Hey,” Murphy says softly, stepping down to join Bellamy on one step and taking his hand. It’s all so careful. Bellamy looks into his clear eyes, sees the honest investment in him that’s there.

Murphy doesn’t say anything else, and he doesn’t have to; Bellamy heard him loud and clear. He squeezes Murphy’s hand in his.

“We can talk when I’m finished with Raven,” he manages finally, releasing Murphy to swipe at his eyes. “About Octavia, and about…” he pauses, looking at Murphy through his lashes, throat tight. “About us.”

Murphy steps closer, and his expression shifts. Everything shifts. “Us?”

Is it hopefulness Bellamy hears in his voice? Their hands aren’t touching, but hovering in proximity, fingers just breaths apart. Something inside is pulling him into Murphy like a magnet, and this time he’s sure, this time he _knows_ they’re going to kiss, until they’re interrupted again by Monty coming up the stairs.

They separate with a jump.

“Oh,” Monty chirps, eyes flicking rapidly between Bellamy and Murphy, aware he is interrupting something. “Hey guys.”

Murphy draws away from Bellamy smoothly, but frustration paints every line of his body. “Hey buddy,” he says, strained. To his credit, he does smile at Monty and step out of his way.

Before he gets too far, Bellamy catches him by the shirt. Murphy stops.

“When I’m finished with Raven,” he repeats, nodding so Murphy understands he’s serious.

He tightens his grip on Murphy’s shirt, exposing a strip of his pale stomach, and they lock eyes. Bellamy’s worried he’s not going to _get it_ , that just a look isn’t going to be enough to convey how close he was to kissing Murphy just now, and how next time it’ll take the end of the damn world to keep them apart. But he shouldn’t have worried, because Murphy is _smiling_ , and the heat in his gaze is startling.

A spark of excitement snaps in Bellamy’s throat and he lets Murphy’s shirt go, wordlessly slipping past Monty and down the rest of the steps, bursting out onto the street.

Jesus. If there were a job that he _absolutely should not_ get involved with a team member on, it’s this one, but something tells him it’s a little late for all that. It would be one thing if Murphy were just some stranger he was working with for a few months, but their history means Bellamy doesn’t _want_ to pull away. This thing with Murphy, it’s comfortable and familiar and strange all at once, and neither of them are thinking things through, really, but it just feels so fucking good that Bellamy doesn’t care.

A shower will be nice. Maybe he can clear his head with that, and work, and then maybe he’ll make it through today.

* * *

When Bellamy returns to the loft, all cleaned up and with an enormous iced coffee for Raven in hand, she and Murphy are not there. Instead, Clarke and Lexa are standing leaning against the counter, speaking quietly to each other. Lexa is absently playing with strands of Clarke’s hair, brushing her slender fingers down her back in a repetitive, soothing motion. Bellamy is almost certain neither of them are even consciously aware she’s doing it.

The moment is so private he has to look away, shuffling his feet as if he just got there and peering down the hall for Raven or Murphy.

“Bellamy,” Clarke says, finally noticing him in the doorway. When he looks at her again, she and Lexa are not touching.

“I brought Raven coffee,” he replies in lieu of a greeting, raising the drink in question. “Where’d she go? She was going to teach me the levels.”

“She’s right here,” Raven sing-songs from the doorway, rushing over to snatch the drink from Bellamy. “Ugh, thank you. Monty and Jasper’s beans are undrinkable.”

Bellamy laughs and shakes his head, going to sit by the charts Raven has been working on. Honestly, he’s excited to see what she’s created. Extractors tend to get most of the credit in this business, but the real truth is that every job is only as good as its architect, and Raven truly is one of a kind. Her designs are more intuitive and sophisticated than anyone else he’s worked with. How she manages to do what she does, down to atmosphere and light and _smell_ , baffles Bellamy to this day. She’s absolutely the smartest person he knows.

“Mind if we join you?” Clarke asks, coming to join Bellamy on the couch. “I haven’t seen the new plans since Murphy got back.”

“Please,” Bellamy nods, scooting over to make room for both Clarke and Lexa. He doesn’t need to, though; Lexa sits apart from them on a stool. When she meets his eyes, Bellamy is struck by how sharp she looks, and is overcome all at once with the sense that she knew he was watching them earlier, and she’s waiting to see what he will do. Well, joke’s on her, he has his _own_ affair with a coworker to focus on.

The thought brings a flush to his cheeks, and while he’s certain Lexa saw, everyone else is moving on.

“Here’s the basic structure,” Raven begins, sipping her drink and flipping through her huge presentation paper until she finds the diagram she’s looking for. It’s all three levels, in different colors, from a bird’s eye view. “Each level is designed around the emotional truth we’re trying to guide Roan toward, so the deeper down we go, the easier it will be for him to accept the inception.”

She gestures to the top sketch. “First level will be a business conference, where Roan is going to be giving a presentation. The main idea we’ll be trying to get across here is ‘I will rise to my mother’s challenge.’”

Lexa looks thoughtful, but stays silent.

“His presentation will fail,” Raven explains. “Obviously, because it isn’t real and he doesn’t know what to say. Think an, ‘I’m late for my final exam and everyone is laughing at me, oh no, I’m naked,’ type of dream.”

Bellamy snorts. “Now there’s a classic.”

Raven beams. “Right. If we do this well, it’ll feel like any other stress dream at first, making it easier to hide it when we go into the deeper levels.”

“So what’s the connection to Nia?” Clarke asks, studying the charts.

“Ontari,” Raven answers. “Or, Murphy _as_ Ontari. The ‘challenge’ in question.”

“That’s good, Raven,” Clarke exhales, impressed.

And she’s right, it’s pretty exquisite. With Murphy acting as Ontari, he can plant the idea that Nia is only keeping Ontari around as an insult to Roan, and Roan’s own projection of her should take over for them the further down they go. If they follow her lead from there, they’re essentially tricking Roan into helping them break into his own mind.

“I know,” Raven says simply, continuing. “Next level is a nightclub. I want it to feel a little chaotic and disorienting, really hammer it in that things are changing. On this level, our concept is, ‘to gain my mother’s respect, I must take control of the company.’ The chaos of the setting will hopefully contribute to the urgency of that idea, and make Roan even more desperate to realize it.”

Raven pauses on the third level, clearly most proud of it. “Our final level will be an underground bunker, where the concept will be—”

“To gain _self_ -respect,” Lexa interrupts her, finishing the thought like it was hers. “I must take control of my own life.”

Stunned, Raven nods. “Yeah, exactly.” She flicks her eyes to Clarke. “You said positive catharsis would stick best. The bunker is supposed to symbolize the ways Nia is keeping him locked down. Repressed,” she finishes somewhat solemnly, looking around at the rest of them.

“Perhaps Roan should be thanking us,” Lexa says, crossing her arms. It seems obvious to Bellamy that she meant what she said at the very beginning of all of this, that she really _does_ like and respect Roan, but something about that doesn’t sit right with him.

Bellamy knows it’s irrational, but some primal part of him is howling for Octavia right now. This is nothing like his situation with her, and yet…

He’s talking before he can stop himself, but tries to keep his tone light.

“For what? Destroying his personal relationships?”

“For exposing his mother for the self-serving, controlling witch she is.”

To his surprise, it’s Murphy that answers him. Bellamy spins around to find Murphy leaning on the counter, mug in hand. Who knows how long he’s been standing there. A stupid smile springs onto Bellamy’s face for a second, because of course he slipped back in here without any of them hearing him.

“Trust me,” he continues, pushing off of the counter and coming to stand with everyone else. “Nia thinks so little of him, but the truth is that she’s holding _him_ back.”

Lexa looks at Murphy with a peculiar expression that Bellamy can’t decipher, but after that he can’t really focus on anything, too distracted by Murphy’s words and thoughts of Octavia.

Was Bellamy holding her back? It was a stupid thing to wonder about, because of course he fucking was, and he knows it. Extraction work was only one piece of the puzzle in the total collapse of their relationship, otherwise Octavia wouldn’t have gotten into dream share herself. No, really it was because Bellamy was so terrified of anything happening to her that he never let her do anything. He wanted to give her a better life, but instead he just stole the one she already had, or the one she could have been having the whole time.

Bellamy only realizes that Raven has finished her coffee and her presentation, that Clarke and Lexa are grabbing their coats to go get lunch, when Murphy settles next to him on the couch and places a soft hand on his knee.

He jerks to attention, then sighs. “Shit, I’m sorry.” For not paying attention, for being who he is, he’s not entirely sure.

“It’s okay,” Murphy replies, patting Bellamy’s knee and then rising, offering his hand. “Take a walk with me? I need some fresh air.”

It’s so sweet that Bellamy aches. He takes Murphy’s hand, lets him pull him to his feet, then keeps holding on.

“Let’s go.”


	4. i kiss you like it's good for my health

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Bellamy! Murphy!” Jasper calls, smoking joint in hand. He has his goggles on, but nobody looks like they’re working. In fact, Raven’s eyes look a little droopy, and Monty is standing behind the counter staring blankly forward, like…
> 
> “Did you all get high?” Murphy accuses, stepping into the room and away from Bellamy. He misses Murphy’s proximity right away, and though they both agreed to keep things professional in front of the rest of the team, now they’re all smoking weed in the loft, so. What the fuck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen I don't know either, this turned out a lot gayer and fluffier than I intended and thus might feel a little out of place here, but I think we all deserve something nice before... well, before what comes next! I live to feed my Murphamys, and so here I give you this chapter that's mostly Bellamy being horny in public and Murphy being cute. Please please comment and let me know what made you laugh, or what you liked, or what you hated! Love you all, stay safe and thank you for reading!
> 
> (The song Jasper sings along to is The Rubberband Man by The Spinners!!!)

It’s nice to pretend, just for a moment, that they live in the world with everyone else.

It’s a breezy, cloudy autumn day. Here, on this park bench with Murphy, watching couples and families toss coins into the fountain or eat lunch together, Bellamy can pretend that they dream at night alone. The money, the guns, the lies, the plans; all of it slips away, and it’s just Murphy’s hand in his, the fall leaves spiraling through the air.

Then Murphy speaks and reality snaps Bellamy like a rubber band on the wrist.

“She wanted to know if you heard about Lincoln.”

That’s right, he remembers, now; they aren’t in the world with everyone else. They’re apart, they’re in danger, and Lincoln is dead.

A little gasp is sucked out of him, and Bellamy leans forward into his free hand, covering his face. Murphy squeezes his hand a little, apologetic.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” he says softly, and Bellamy still can’t look at him.

Yeah, he heard about Lincoln. Extraction is a field requiring very specific skillsets, so their network is pretty small. You hear about each other, come to know each other by working together or by mutual coworkers, so it doesn’t matter that he hasn’t actually _spoken_ to Lincoln since they were both discharged from the military. Bellamy still found out when Lincoln was killed.

Bellamy clears his throat. “I wanted to track her down. I could have,” he manages, still gruff. “I wanted to say, I don’t know… _something_ , try to fix it. But she was so _mad_ at me the last time, and it felt like it was all my fault—”

He cuts himself off and withdraws his hand from Murphy’s to completely cover his face. He can’t just say it, just admit that he’s a coward. Bitter tears are leaking out of his eyes and he doesn’t want Murphy to see, even though he knows if he looked Murphy would be staring at him in that same careful, curious way of his. Shame burns hot under his skin.

“We were trained together,” Bellamy explains, covering just his eyes so Murphy can hear him. “Lincoln and I, in the military. That’s how he and Octavia met,” he stops, remembering the screaming arguments with Octavia about her and Lincoln that traveled through their entire apartment. Octavia slamming her door in his face. He feels himself starting to spiral. “It’s my fault we both got discharged, my fault he got into this, my fault he’s _dead_ —”

“Bellamy,” Murphy’s voice cuts him off, firm. His hand is spread wide and warm on Bellamy’s back, and that feels nice. “Stop.”

“I can’t,” Bellamy chokes, wiping his tears furiously.

Murphy shifts in his seat next to him, hand still on his back. “Octavia told me she was miserable after he died because she just wanted to see you.”

Bellamy stops breathing, just for a second. That… doesn’t make any sense.

“What?”

Murphy leans closer, softening somehow. “She wanted to reach out to you, too. She was sad, and she just wanted her big brother, someone else who knew Lincoln, but she was scared,” he says, rubbing Bellamy’s back a little like he’s unused to the motion, petting him like a cat. “Do you understand?”

Bellamy sits up to face Murphy, and their faces are very close. Murphy’s breath catches, just a little, and his hand rises quickly to catch a tear on Bellamy’s cheek.

“I know you’re afraid, but I don’t think it’s too late,” Murphy concludes, pulling his hands away to place them on his knees, awkward.

Something about _everything_ , about Murphy encouraging him to be brave even as he pulls away from him, about finally telling someone about Lincoln, about discovering Octavia misses him too… Bellamy starts laughing. And crying. He probably looks insane, but he can’t help himself, it’s just pouring out of him.

It’s relief, he understands. Relief that Octavia doesn’t blame him for something else, that she maybe wants some kind of relationship with him again. She wanted comfort from him, after everything, even though she has every right to hate him.

And Murphy let him know. Murphy, who almost kissed him last night but didn’t because it would have been wrong. Murphy, who went from trying to kill him the first time they met to cradling his dying body when the Pike job went south, apologizing over and over in the backseat while Octavia drove them to the hospital because he didn’t know who else to call. How they didn’t speak for a long time, after that. How Murphy told him at the shipyard he thought Bellamy wouldn’t have come, if he knew Murphy really needed him.

Murphy looks a little amused, though he’s obviously trying to hide it. “You okay?”

Bellamy says nothing, just grabs the back of Murphy’s shirt and tugs him into a crushing hug, holding his body as close as possible. Murphy stiffens at first, a shocked exhale leaving him, but winds his arms around Bellamy and holds him tight, too. _God_ , Bellamy likes him so much. They sit there, hugging close, thighs pressed together, for several moments before Bellamy pulls away and crashes his mouth into Murphy’s.

Murphy shoves him away with shocking force, spluttering. “Whoa!”

“Murphy!” Bellamy blurts in surprise, embarrassment rushing through him. “I’m sorry, I thought—”

“No,” Murphy interrupts him, chest heaving. He’s smiling, but it looks strange. “I mean, yes, no, _fuck_.” He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, scooting back next to Bellamy. “I like you, and I want to kiss you. But you can’t just… you have to ask, idiot.”

Clearly, that spooked Murphy for some reason Bellamy is not privy to yet, but Murphy _does_ like him and _does_ want to kiss him. Poor execution of a plan, but Bellamy can fix that. Murphy needs him to ask, so he’ll ask.

Bellamy smiles, easy, and takes Murphy’s hand.

“Murphy, can I kiss you?”

This time Murphy leans in first, catching Bellamy’s lips in his, and it’s much better than before. Murphy’s lips are so soft and pretty, so perfect in between his own, Bellamy can’t help but smile even wider. One of Murphy’s hands come forward to grab Bellamy’s big sweater, and he threads his own hand through Murphy’s messy hair, pulling him closer. A child runs behind them screaming, and they break apart with a laugh.

“There’s probably somewhere else we could be doing this,” Murphy mutters, voice dark and teasing. Bellamy feels his pulse jump.

“Yeah?” Bellamy responds, unable to help himself. Serious topics from moments ago are forgotten in favor of Murphy Murphy _Murphy_ , right here in front of him, who just kissed him. The shimmering between them, that energy that throbs inside of him whenever Murphy is near, has taken him over completely, filled him to bursting. All he can see are Murphy’s clear eyes looking back at him.

“If we hurry we could probably have sex in the spare room before everyone is back from lunch,” Murphy says casually, hand still on Bellamy’s sweater.

Oh, god.

“ _Jesus_ , Murph,” Bellamy groans, barking a surprised laugh and bumping their foreheads together. “You can’t say that to me right now.”

Murphy smiles, kisses him again, this time biting Bellamy’s lip a little. “What are you gonna do about it?” he whispers when he pulls away.

Bellamy sighs and props his elbow on the back of the bench, brushing his hair out of his face. He feels like a fucking teenager. “Well, I need to sit here for a second if you want to go anywhere, because my dick is hard.”

Murphy snorts and _looks_ , unashamed, which of course just makes everything worse. He threads his fingers through Bellamy’s, shifting to match him and propping his own elbow up. “But you do want to fuck in the spare room?”

“ _Stop_ ,” Bellamy hisses, giddy laughter perched in his throat. God, Murphy makes him stupid. “I mean, I _do_ , you have no idea, it’s just…”

Murphy simply lifts his eyebrows, waiting. Bellamy is already blushing, already so sure Murphy will tease him to hell for what he’s about to say that he almost chickens out.

“I don’t want to hurry,” is what he settles on at last, running his thumb over the back of Murphy’s hand. The sun peeks through the wall of clouds for just a minute, and Murphy glows in the light. His eyelashes are long. “I don’t know about you, but some rushed _whatever_ on Monty’s futon isn’t gonna cut it for me.”

Murphy doesn’t tease him. He doesn’t say anything, actually, just breathes for a second, flutters those long lashes with rapid blinks. He swallows, looking away.

“Oh,” Murphy says, and his voice is small. He wasn’t expecting Bellamy to say that, Bellamy realizes, but he looks happy. He looks _cute_. This is a new Murphy, one that’s soft and silly in a way that Bellamy has never seen before. “Sap,” Murphy says into his hand, hiding a smile.

“We’ll make time,” Bellamy vows, shaking Murphy’s limp hand until he squeezes back. “When the job is over, we’ll have all the money and free time in the world, alright?”

For a moment, it seems like the wrong thing to say. Bellamy hopes he hasn’t offended him by putting the job first, but then Murphy nods. “I know how important this is to you. I won’t distract you,” he says, catching Bellamy’s eye. “Well, too much.”

Bellamy drops his head, smiling. “You can distract me a little.”

Murphy kisses him again, and Bellamy thinks for a second that maybe it’s alright that they don’t live in the world with everyone else, as long as they get to have this one just between the two of them.

* * *

When they get back to the loft, the whole team is there. So much for Murphy’s idea, Bellamy thinks, and when he looks at Murphy he knows they’re thinking the same thing. They laugh at each other.

“Bellamy! Murphy!” Jasper calls, smoking joint in hand. He has his goggles on, but nobody looks like they’re working. In fact, Raven’s eyes look a little droopy, and Monty is standing behind the counter staring blankly forward, like…

“Did you all get high?” Murphy accuses, stepping into the room and away from Bellamy. He misses Murphy’s proximity right away, and though they both agreed to keep things professional in front of the rest of the team, now they’re all smoking weed in the loft, so. What the fuck.

“Not _all_ of us,” Clarke says through clenched teeth, seated next to Lexa on the couch, arms crossed.

“Oh, boo!” Raven shouts, cupping one hand around her mouth to amplify her heckling. “Clarke’s no fun.”

“Come on, princess,” Murphy says, plucking the joint from Jasper’s fingers and taking a modest drag himself. “Let loose once in a while, huh?”

Just then, the song in the jukebox changes over, upbeat bassline filling the space.

Jasper hollers, “Oh, yes, Monty turn that _up_!”

Monty, snapping out of his earlier reverie, obliges. Jasper starts dancing along, bouncing over to where Raven is leaning against the counter to start singing.

“ _Hand me down my walking cane, hand me down my hat_ ,” he croons, taking Raven by the hand and spinning her around. “ _Hurry now, and don’t be late ‘cause we ain’t got time to chat_ ,” he continues, pulling her forward until they stumble into the middle of the room. She’s giggling, smiling broadly, and Bellamy is struck by how pretty she is.

Raven joins in the singing, and the two of them swing their arms together in glee. Monty rushes around from the counter, and Murphy scoots over too, joint hanging out of his mouth, until the four of them are all dancing together.

Bellamy smiles, not usually one for dancing, and looks over to Clarke and Lexa. He feels bad for Clarke; she looks tired, and she’s only mad at them for having fun right now because she so badly wants to join, but won’t permit herself. He loves her.

He’s about to walk over, offer her his hand like he might have any other time, when Lexa stands up and extends her own hand to Clarke. Bellamy exhales, watching as Clarke feigns reluctance, taking Lexa’s hand and coming to dance with everyone else way faster than Bellamy has ever gotten her to let go. Then Lexa looks at him, beckons him over to join them.

Maybe it’s weird, maybe it’s a waste of time; Bellamy doesn’t care, throwing himself in the middle of everyone and shouting along with everyone else. He lets himself feel happy, no judgment, no stress. That shit is gonna keep being there, but he only has right now to lean his forehead against Murphy’s, to sing with Jasper and Monty, to watch Clarke and Lexa smiling at each other like that.

Even if they weren’t about to change the world forever, Bellamy is starting to feel changed, and it’s because of this job from Lexa. Because of Murphy. He looks around at the team, aches for them, is sorry in advance to let them go.

Bellamy spreads his arms and traps as many people as he can in them, still dancing.


	5. out of the tarpit (and into the quicksand)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bellamy is out on the balcony sipping an indulgent night-before-the-job cigarette when the sliding door opens and Octavia steps out into the cold with him. He’s seen her in passing, hanging around Jasper and Monty the past few days, but they haven’t spoken directly since their explosive reunion. She avoids Bellamy. A flash of panic shoots through him and he thinks about chucking the cigarette over the railing, like she’s caught him, but that’s not how things are between them anymore. He doesn’t do it, barely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you all enjoy this chapter! Things are picking up! Please leave me your feedback in the comments, and thank you very very much for reading. Enjoy!!

Bellamy is out on the balcony sipping an indulgent night-before-the-job cigarette when the sliding door opens and Octavia steps out into the cold with him. He’s seen her in passing, hanging around Jasper and Monty the past few days, but they haven’t spoken directly since their explosive reunion. She avoids Bellamy. A flash of panic shoots through him and he thinks about chucking the cigarette over the railing, like she’s caught him, but that’s not how things are between them anymore. He doesn’t do it, barely.

They stand together in silence, leaning against the metal, staring out into the city. People walk in and out of the door to the speakeasy below every now and then, stumbling down the street together, huddled close in the chill. It is a Saturday night, Bellamy supposes, though the idea of anyone taking somnacin recreationally still sorta makes his gut twist. He’s starting to feel nervous.

“Thought you quit,” Octavia says at last, casting a strange look at Bellamy. She looks tired. Older.

Bellamy sighs, long and weary.

“Special occasion,” is what he lands on. Something twinges in him at the conversation they’re not having, but if Bellamy starts thinking now about how it isn’t the right time he won’t ever stop. That’s a cycle of misery that will never, ever end.

Octavia doesn’t say anything else, just stands with him until he finishes his cigarette. Whatever she wanted, Bellamy doesn’t know if she got it. She leaves.

Bellamy is alone, again. He lights another cigarette. Checks his totem, the pocketwatch, just for good measure. He’s awake.

Doesn’t sleep much, but he never does before a job. Aware of this ritual, Monty offered him the spare room to try and get some sleep in again, which was kind, but he only stumbles in there long after midnight to stare at the ceiling under his thin blanket.

Murphy opens the door early in the morning, before the sun has even risen, and just stands there for a second before Bellamy rolls over and holds up the little blanket, offering him a place. Murphy crawls onto the futon, squishing himself between Bellamy’s body and the cushion and curling in close. Bellamy breathes him in, buries his face in Murphy’s messy hair.

Neither of them speak, but it doesn’t seem like Murphy is here to talk. This thing between them, it’s still so loose and formless, nebulous and unsure as the future, tangled in the past. A surge of emotion rises in Bellamy, and he squeezes Murphy even tighter. He wants to pull Murphy into himself somehow, keep him there inside, right where Bellamy can see him and he’s safe. Tears spring to his eyes from the wrenching pain in realizing he probably wouldn’t be safe in there, either. Bellamy isn’t.

Time sort of slips away. They lie there, squashed into each other on the futon, until sunlight comes streaming through the slats in the blinds and Bellamy can hear low voices coming from the loft.

Murphy starts to shift in his arms, so Bellamy relaxes his grip, surprised when Murphy crawls on top of him to straddle him. The forger presses a slow, soft kiss to Bellamy’s temple, then sits back to peer at his face.

“I don’t know what to expect from you,” he murmurs, shocking Bellamy with his honesty. It’s happening again; they’re leaving this world, and entering the one just for them. Bellamy lets his hands fall onto Murphy’s upper arms, searching his face, allowing himself to appreciate once more how beautiful he is.

“I know,” he replies, hoping to match Murphy’s bravery in telling the truth. “I’m sorry.”

He is. Bellamy doesn’t mean to break his promises. He doesn’t mean to say one thing and every time do another. It’s not easy being in his life, and he knows that. Bellamy keeps asking Murphy to sign on for shit he doesn’t know the full reality of, asking him to trust him when there’s just no good reason to. He can’t understand why Murphy keeps saying yes.

Murphy leans forward and kisses him on the mouth, this time, and this is dangerous. He can’t add more stakes to this, can’t afford more pressure on this insane job, and it’s too late, because Bellamy’s kissing Murphy and he so desperately wants them both to walk away from this job in one piece that it makes him crazy. They have to go, soon. He winds his arms around Murphy’s middle, pressing them closer together, moans a little into his open mouth.

“Shh,” Murphy scolds him with a laugh, pushing him back down to the futon with a firm hand on his chest.

In this moment, Bellamy thinks he would be fine with some rushed sexual fumbling on Monty’s futon, actually, because at least it would be better than nothing. At least it would happen for sure, and not remain an impossible hope or lost chance forever because one or both of them is dead. But Murphy gets off of him, straightens his clothes out, tells him to wait a second before following him into the loft, and Bellamy remembers how infrequently he gets what he wants.

Everyone looks tired, except for maybe Monty and Jasper, who have the advantage of being sedative chemists. It feels bittersweet; everything is packed up, important documents signed and stored, the rest destroyed and ready for the team to scatter once the job is done. They won’t be coming back to work in this loft, after this.

Jasper leaves to start the van. Things move quickly after that. The steps unfold like Bellamy has envisioned them dozens of times: they drive to the spa, which Lexa _bought_ (“for convenience,” she’d said), to set up in the back room. Jasper scopes the parking lot quickly, then follows them inside to run the PASIV.

Dosing Roan is the easiest thing in the world. He sips his lemon water and passes out cold before even leaving the waiting room. He’s fucking _huge_ , and heavy, so it takes a second for Murphy and Bellamy to waddle with him held between them to the small, sterile room where massage tables are gathered in a circle around the PASIV. Bellamy heaves Roan’s shoulders onto one of the tables, breathing hard, and stops to brush his hair out of his face. Panic is rising in him.

Murphy catches his eye, equally winded from carrying Roan, and offers him a little smile. Bellamy sucks in a huge breath through his nose, thinks of God blowing air into Adam’s lungs, then releases it, trying to fall back into his training. It’s easier than he thinks it will be.

Jasper still has to help him attach his IV line, his hands are shaking too bad. He says something, a joke, something nice intended to calm him, but Bellamy doesn’t hear. The somnacin is already sending him down, down, down.

* * *

“And that’s why this quarter, we—”

Roan grunts, stops, squinting his eyes shut under the awful fluorescents of the hotel ballroom. God, he wishes his mother would stop fucking booking him for these chicken shit conferences. He’s the god damn president of the company, it’s not worth his time.

He opens his eyes again, scans the room, and realizes he… doesn’t remember where he is.

“Excuse me…” he mumbles into the mic, starting to panic. Damn it. There’s no notecards on the podium, no presentation on the projector screen behind him. What event even is this? Roan scans the room again, this time looking for a sign or banner, _anything_ to clue him in to what he is supposed to be saying right now. Nothing but tacky light fixtures and a sea of suit-clad men, and some women, seated around plain white tables, all staring at him expectantly.

In the back of the room, the shiny gold of Ontari’s blouse calls his attention to her smirking presence, lurking somewhat in the shadows. Oh, that _bitch_. She must be loving this. As if confirming it, she laughs and turns, headed for the exit.

“Ladies and gentlemen, please, forgive me, I have to… go…” Roan fumbles into the mic, wincing along with the crowd as feedback whines painfully in the speakers. Not his most graceful exit, but he can’t bring himself to care too much when he doesn’t even know what presentation he’s walking out of. He tries to shake the sense back into his head as he ducks off the stage, ignoring the scandalized murmuring of the crowd in pursuit of Ontari. A fight is almost a guarantee, but even that is better than all the eyes on Roan right now, the chaos of his failed presentation. Evidently, he went a little too hard last night if he can't remember what he's doing here. Wouldn’t be the first time.

He bursts into the hall just in time to see Ontari’s ponytail swing around the corner and follows her with a frustrated grunt. She never makes it easy.

“Ontari!” he bellows, breaking into a jog. He rounds the corner too fast and almost wipes out, narrowly avoids running directly into Ontari, who is leaning against the wall, arms crossed arrogantly.

“Nice going on your presentation, Keyrock,” she sneers, and he growls at the nickname, slamming his hand on the wall next to her face. Ontari does not flinch.

“What are you doing here,” Roan says slowly, teeth clenched. “What, mother is sending you, personally, to babysit me now?”

Ontari beams, and Roan would love to smack that smug look right off her face. “That’s right,” she says, and Roan’s frown deepens. “She was _so_ sure you would screw things up today. Guess she was right—”

Roan is moving before he realizes it, grabbing Ontari’s shoulders and slamming her back into the wall, crowding into her space. They’ve fought before, of course; boxing was a crucial element of their relationship, part of the stupid corporate mindfuck games that Roan so hated participating in, and Ontari was his match in the ring as she was in business. Those were scheduled, sanctioned bouts, though. He’s never snapped and grabbed her like this before, but something is especially pissing him off right now.

“Listen to me,” he hisses, and her eyes bug out huge. Roan smirks for a moment, satisfied with himself for making her crack, when he hears the distinct click of a handgun, feels cold metal pressing into the back of his head. He freezes.

“Am I interrupting something?” a rumbling voice says from behind him, and Roan curses. This has to be a fucking joke.

“What is this?” Roan hisses, locking eyes with Ontari, searching her face for answers. All he sees is terror.

“The two of you are going to be joining us for a little ride,” the gunman explains, and in his peripheral vision Roan can see two more people round the corner, masks on, guns raised. Oh, so this is _really_ bad.

Roan swallows and steps tentatively away from Ontari, raising his hands. “This is a waste of your time,” he tries, passive. “We’re both insured against kidnapping for over—”

A different gunman steps forward and cracks him across the face with her gun.

“Shut up!” she commands harshly as Roan gasps, stumbling to keep on his feet and clutching his tender face. He’s bleeding. “Get moving.”

Ontari is still frozen against the wall until the third guy steps forward and grabs her roughly by the arm. The first gunman grabs Roan and starts dragging him forward, toward a fire exit at the end of the hall. His face _hurts_ , his head hurts, and it’s hard to keep his feet underneath him.

They rush down the hall and out onto the city street, where two vehicles are waiting for them. From behind him, someone slips a bag over his head, and Roan is too disoriented and in pain to even struggle. His hands are zip tied together too, and he feels himself shoved into one of the cars beside Ontari. The engine starts, and they peal out of the alleyway, going god knows where.

Roan starts trying his best to work his way out of his bindings right away, squinting and straining against the bag trying to see anything he can outside, but it’s useless. The weave of the bag is too tight, and the tie on his wrists is the same. An involuntary groan leaves him, and he leans back into the seat. Shit.

His self-pity is interrupted by the glass of the back window exploding next to his head, and the sound of gunshots punctuating the growl of the car engine.

“Bellamy!” the woman in the passenger seat shouts, and the car swerves wildly, smacking Roan’s already wounded face on the window, hard.

“Hang on!” the driver, Bellamy, says, and his huge hand reaches past Roan in the backseat to pull both him and Ontari down and out of the line of fire. In the chaos, Ontari’s manicured hands find his, and they squeeze each other, nothing else to hold onto in this moment.

And the moment goes on and on. Terrifying squealing of tires, obscene crunching of metal on metal, seemingly endless gunshots. They’re in traffic, or blocked somehow, trying to ram through whatever is blocking them in. Roan and Ontari slide around wildly in the backseat, trying to keep a grip on anything.

Eventually, the gunshots fade, and the ride smooths out, and Ontari releases his hands. After several minutes, the car stops and the driver is dragging him away alone.

* * *

The second Bellamy returns from where he’s left Roan in the other room, Murphy rips the bag off of his head and tumbles out of the car, panting and once again looking like himself.

“Bellamy, mind telling me what the _fuck_ is going on?” he croaks, running his hand through his hair. Raven has just pulled into the warehouse behind them, Monty hopping out of the still-moving car to close the garage door and hide them from view. Bellamy doesn’t have time for any of that, he has to get to Lexa. Everything is fucked. _Everything_ is fucked, and it’s Bellamy’s fault.

There was no time to signal to Murphy that they were going with the kidnapping thing, that the moment after Roan had left after “Ontari,” armed security had burst into the conference room in search of them. The team had moments to adjust, and even then they got caught up in Roan’s private army in the street on the way here.

“I’m sorry, Murphy, there wasn’t time to tell you,” he says without looking at him, too focused on pulling Lexa from the passenger seat. Shit. Thick red blood is oozing from the bullet wound in her gut.

“Oh, fuck,” Murphy breathes, seeing the wound. Lexa gasps at being jostled, face frozen and pale in pain. “How did this happen?”

“It’s my fault,” Bellamy whispers. He should have known, when it was so impossible to find anything online about Roan. Nia must have paid a professional to wipe him from the internet, and a good one too, because Bellamy had to pull every trick he knows to get anything. It fits his profile, too, to have a militarized subconscious; it’s what Bellamy would do, if he were a high profile business figure.

They’re trapped in this extended job with a trained team of projections who will hunt them down and kill them, probably in a matter of hours, and Bellamy walked his entire team right into it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ontari's mean nickname for Roan (Keyrock) is a reference to the SNL sketch Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer, in which a caveman who is unfrozen becomes a lawyer and abuses the fact that everyone assumes he is a simple caveman to manipulate people and enjoy his high class lifestyle. So. Do with that what you will.
> 
> Goodbye to the loft :( thank you for the dance parties 
> 
> Once again, thank you very much for reading. I am so grateful to share this story with you all <3


	6. who's on my side?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “If we die, we drop into Limbo,” Bellamy reports gruffly, pulling Murphy’s focus away from Lexa. His words take a moment to settle, and then all eyes are on Clarke.
> 
> Limbo was one of the early discoveries in dream share, the limitless, raw subconscious space it is possible for one’s mind to become trapped in under the effects of sedatives and somnacin. Some see a beach, some see a field, some a limitless ocean; it doesn’t matter, it just goes on forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello all I am back with an update... this one was a bit of a struggle for some reason so please let me know what you think! I am so grateful to all of you for reading, and hope everyone is doing well.

“Help me get her onto the table,” Bellamy instructs through the crack in his voice, scooping Lexa up under her armpits while Murphy takes her legs, a sickening recreation of how they carried Roan in the waking world. Murphy’s eyes are huge, fixed on the blooming red spot growing at Lexa’s middle. They manage to gingerly rest her on a work table in time for Clarke to rush over and shove them both out of the way, hands flying into action. Lexa looks awful in the dim warehouse light.

“Christ, is she dying? Is she dying?” Clarke rasps, frantic. She has to answer her own question, assessing the damage quickly, and when she does, she turns to Bellamy and shoves him in the chest with both hands hard enough to make him stumble backward. Tears are shining in her eyes.

“Clarke!” Murphy shouts in surprise, stepping forward to intervene, but Bellamy holds out his hand to stop them both. Raven and Monty join them, faces grave.

“Why the _hell_ were we ambushed, huh?” Clarke demands, stepping back into Bellamy’s space and staring him down. He doesn’t step away, doesn’t look away, doesn’t _do_ anything, because he deserves this verbal lashing. “Those were not normal projections, he’s been trained for God’s sake!”

“What, subconscious security?” Raven clarifies, crossing her arms and looking at Bellamy accusatorily. “I don’t remember you saying anything about that.”

He’s their point man. It is his job to inform them about this kind of thing, to be aware of it. Bellamy squeezes his eyes shut tight just for a second, sighing.

“It should have shown in the research, I’m sorry—”

“Well, why the hell didn’t it?” Clarke continues, growing red in the face from shouting. She’s right to be angry. She’d been with Lexa and Bellamy’d been so preoccupied thinking about Murphy, and then Octavia, he only told her what he’d found, not what he didn’t. Clarke would have figured it out, if he had just said something. “You know how important this is!”

Jesus, Roan might hear them.

“Just, calm down—”

Clarke shoves him again, and Raven lurches forward to hold her back. “No, don’t you tell me to calm down! This was your responsibility, god damn it, you were meant to check his background thoroughly! We are not prepared for this level of engagement,” she trails off at the end, holding her face in her trembling hands and breathing hard. Raven is rubbing soothing circles in her back. It’s scaring Bellamy, how seriously Clarke is falling apart right now. It means the gunshot in Lexa’s stomach is going to kill her.

He needs to regain control. “Look, we’ve dealt with sub-security before, we’ll be a little more careful and—”

“ _This_ was not a part of the plan!” Clarke jabs her finger in Lexa’s direction, leaning until Bellamy meets her eyes. “Lexa is going to die,” she finishes weakly, real emotion breaking through just for a moment and confirming Bellamy’s suspicions. A noxious and sickening feeling rises in his throat, strangling him.

“Alright then,” Murphy sniffs, pressing forward and cocking his gun. “Let’s put her out of her misery,” he says, taking aim at Lexa’s head. _When you die in the dream, you wake up_.

Something in the air snaps. Bellamy and Clarke both move to stop him at once, but Clarke gets there first, twisting the hand holding the gun up and behind Murphy’s back until he drops it with a surprised yell.

“Don’t do that,” she says in a low, warning tone. “You can’t do that, Murphy.”

Murphy is confused, defensive. “She’s in _agony_ , I’m waking her up!” He shoves Clarke off of him, rattled that she touched him like that, that she hurt him.

“No, you wouldn’t be,” Monty steps in, speaking for the first time Bellamy has heard all morning. “If we die in this dream, we won’t wake up, we’re too heavily sedated for that.”

There’s a tense silence, then, because Murphy is supposed to know this. Bellamy even _told_ him as much, when he picked him up. He tries to remember the compound testing phase and realizes the bulk of it was while Murphy was gone being Ontari’s shadow, that no one ended up reminding him of that crucial little detail. Monty formulated this compound to preserve inner ear function specifically so that only a physical kick, a falling sensation, will wake them.

It wasn’t supposed to matter, because Roan was not supposed to have a militarized subconscious, they weren’t supposed to have to run with this half-formed backup plan. Bellamy is overwhelmed suddenly: they don’t know what they’re doing at all, and all that time they spent preparing just got shot to shit.

“So what the hell happens when we die, then?” Murphy asks, throwing his arms out at his sides. His eyes shift back to Lexa, and a flash of anguish flickers across his features. “Jesus Christ, I said from the very beginning she shouldn’t even be here!”

“If we die, we drop into Limbo,” Bellamy reports gruffly, pulling Murphy’s focus away from Lexa. His words take a moment to settle, and then all eyes are on Clarke.

Limbo was one of the early discoveries in dream share, the limitless, raw subconscious space it is possible for one’s mind to become trapped in under the effects of sedatives and somnacin. Some see a beach, some see a field, some a limitless ocean; it doesn’t matter, it just goes on forever. Jake Griffin started his research into inception after he’d been researching Limbo for years, making Clarke a near expert.

Horror stories and rumors of team members lost in Limbo so long they forget who they are floated around the extraction community. Time and space spread on infinitely, down there. Anyone would lose themselves.

Murphy scoffs, but there’s a tremor in it that betrays real fear. “Great. So we’re trapped in Roan’s mind with a trained private military and if we get killed, we go to Limbo and our brains turn to scrambled egg.”

Bellamy jolts at the hand clutching his sleeve, only to realize it’s Lexa. Blood seeps into the fabric of his jacket. Her serious face is stoic as ever despite the pallor of her skin and the cold sweat on her brow. A rush of guilt turns Bellamy’s stomach, because it’s his fault, but she shakes him a little, trying to get him to focus. Bellamy swallows thickly, meets her gaze, and though Lexa can’t speak right now, he understands. She’s reminding him of their understanding, of the silent agreement between the two of them to finish this thing, no matter what, in the only way she can right now. The pain she must be in is unimaginable, and she’s trying to tell him to finish the damn thing.

The idea is already brewing in Bellamy when Raven speaks.

“No, that’s not what’s going to happen,” she declares, holding onto Clarke once more. “We continue with the job, just try to get it done as fast as possible. Go down through the levels before Lexa can drop into Limbo, ride the kick back up.”

“Before she dies,” Clarke mutters, eyes trained on Lexa’s prone form on the table. Bellamy watches her work it out in her head, realize it’s their only option. If they wait, Lexa will most certainly die and lose her mind in Limbo, and with this level of sedation it would be a full week for the rest of them in this dream. They’d never survive that long, not with the degree of defense they’re working with. Every last one of them would be dead in that time. A kick might be the _only_ thing that can wake them, now.

Clarke pulls herself from Raven’s hold gently, running her hands over her face once more. It’s not unhinged; this time, it’s a focus ritual Bellamy recognizes. She’s falling back on her own training, just as Bellamy must force himself to do every job, too. When he can see her expression again, it has hardened, despite the tears still shining on her cheeks.

“Bellamy, Murphy: you have one hour to get something out of Roan,” she commands, taking charge in a way that feels comforting, a relief to Bellamy. “Monty, we need to take this operation mobile. Since this is your dream, I need you to drive the van.”

Monty nods, keeping it together really well, all things considered. Bellamy knows Monty; he hates driving on a good day, and something tells Bellamy they don’t have a peaceful van jaunt through the city in store for them. He makes a note to himself to find Monty before they go, let him know he appreciates it. Monty is supposed to be here as their chemist, not a stunt driver.

“Raven, you and I need to go over the rest of the levels and the new kicks,” Clarke continues, crossing her arms. She flicks her eyes to Bellamy, now addressing him. “We’re running with ‘Dr. Charles’ like we did on the Wallace job.”

Bellamy shakes his head roughly at that, and Lexa’s hand falls away from his arm. “No, _no_ , we are not doing ‘Dr. Charles,’” he protests, and Murphy steps forward to lift Lexa’s arm back onto the table. The strangling sensation from before is gone, but now a tense and jumpy entity has taken its place, making Bellamy want to shout.

“Who or what is Dr. Charles?” Murphy asks, eyes lingering on Lexa.

Bellamy sighs, fights the urge to step into Murphy’s space, to reach out and touch him. “It’s a gambit where Clarke poses as the head of projection security. It involves telling the mark that they’re dreaming, and if you recall, Clarke,” he says through clenched teeth. “It didn’t work.”

“Got any better ideas, Bellamy?” Clarke asks, arms out, expectant. He bristles at that, because she’s right, and she knows she’s right. When he says nothing, she drops her hands and nods. “That’s what I thought. We’re doing ‘Dr. Charles’ and you’re getting that damn combination from Roan,” she finishes, pointing sternly at the spare room.

Monty walks away to prepare things in the van, and Clarke and Raven split off to discuss the new plan, so Bellamy takes Murphy by the shoulder and leads him to the door. Their footsteps echo noisily in the warehouse, sparse and plain, reminding Bellamy at every step that this isn’t how they planned things, that he fucked this up. Murphy walks with him, then stops him out front, hand on Bellamy’s chest. Near his heart. Bellamy’s pulse jumps.

“I need a minute to get into character,” Murphy insists, on edge but trying to hide it by teasing him. “Go shake him up for me.”

Bellamy sighs, already tired and they’ve barely started. “You want a combination,” he reminds him once more, even after Clarke said it, insecure in both Murphy’s knowledge and his own instruction, after everything. “Bring up—”

“The safe in Nia’s office,” Murphy interrupts him. “Bellamy, _I_ told you all about the safe, remember?”

It’s gentle, but Bellamy struggles to recover. Trying not to slip and he slips even worse, with Murphy as his witness. He can’t stop doing it.

“Right,” he manages at last, settling his hand on top of where’s Murphy’s is resting on his chest. Sensing his need to be grounded right now, Murphy twists his hand around to twine their fingers together, giving Bellamy a squeeze.

“We’ll get it done,” Murphy assures him quietly, leaning in closer. His eyes search Bellamy’s face, and it’s clear he doesn’t fully believe what he said, but it’s nice that he said it. Bellamy gets the sense he is standing still while the rest of the world is spinning around him, Murphy’s hand his only meaningful anchor to the solid ground. There’s no time for this.

He swallows the lump in his throat, nods. Gives Murphy’s hand a little squeeze back before releasing him to don his ski mask once more.

* * *

They left the bag on Roan’s head. For some reason, in spite of it all, that is pissing him off the most right now. Ontari is gone, they didn’t bring her in with him when they zip tied him to this pipe in the wall. After some scrabbling, he discovers it seems to be attached to a small sink, but no matter where or how hard Roan tugs on the pipe, it won’t give. The way his arms are twisted, he can’t reach the bag either. He’s stuck, and he can’t fucking see.

“You’ll wait in here until we need something from you,” the gunman had growled as he hastily tied Roan’s hands, which seemed strange to him at the time, but he wasn’t really in any position to ask questions. Didn’t get the chance to ask about the bag.

He can hear shouting voices coming from the other room, but none of what his captors are saying is understandable. His head is still throbbing from where that bitch hit him with her gun. Judging by the blood, he’ll have a scar on his temple. Annoying.

It’s cold, on the concrete floor. Little damp, too. Roan shudders, curls up on himself, rests his head on the wall behind him.

The metal door across the room bursts open, and Roan jumps. Someone crosses the room in big strides, yanks the bag from his head.

It’s the first gunman, the biggest one, still masked, holding a shiny silver pistol. He stands there, silent, until Roan shifts uncomfortably and faces him head on.

“What?” he spits, indignant. “What do you want from me?”

Silence. Frustration roars in him for a moment, then is quashed with cold dread in an instant at the sound of Ontari screaming from outside. Roan swallows. He can hear her struggling, demanding someone let her go, in pain. She cries again.

“What is that?” he says, pointing accusingly toward the noise. He isn’t sure he wants the answer.

“Insurance,” the gunman replies, gruff. He’s shorter than Roan, definitely wouldn’t stand a chance in a fair fight. Roan imagines shooting his hips forward, kicking the gun out of the guy’s hand then nailing him in the knee, going for the gun while he’s distracted. As if reading his mind, his captor steps away before he gets the chance, going for the door once more.

Seriously, that’s it? “Hey, wait!” Roan calls, leaning forward against his restraints. Where is Ontari? What are they doing to her?

He gets his answer when the gunman yanks her into the room. She’s now barefoot, her pencil skirt torn, and there’s blood dribbling out of her mouth and down her chin. She looks absolutely miserable, and furious. A strangely protective surge rises in him, and he moves to rest on his knees.

“Ontari,” he says, mystified, and she shoots him a look he knows well, one that says _do not dare perceive me in this state_. The gunman forces her to her knees roughly, flicks open a knife to cut and retie her zip ties. For a moment, it looks like she’ll bolt, or grab him or something, but their captor catches her by one wrist, presses his gun firmly into her temple, and says, “don’t.”

Ontari lets him tie her to the pipe.

When he’s finished, the gunman steps back and stuffs the pistol into the back of his pants. “Catch each other up on what you missed. I’ll be back here in an hour,” he warns, striding from the room and exiting with a slam of the metal door. The sound rings in the silence that follows him.

Ontari tucks her feet under her, vulnerable.

“Are you okay?” Roan questions immediately, running his eyes over her to look for damage. Surface scrapes all over her legs, the blood in her mouth, maybe a shiner blossoming around one eye. “Jesus, Ontari.”

She smirks, but it looks like it hurts. “You know my mouth gets me into trouble. I was being rude.”

She says it like a joke, but it isn’t very funny. Roan winces, because even though Ontari is quite possibly the most loathsome woman to ever walk this Earth, she doesn’t deserve to be beaten for it, hands tied behind her back. He feels a rush of guilt for pinning her against the wall earlier.

“What do they want from us?” he asks, looking away from Ontari to hide his shame.

She lets out a long sigh, lets her head fall back against the brick behind them. “They want into your mother’s safe,” she says, back to her usual feigned nonchalance and rolling her neck. It pops loudly. “They want the hard copies of the alternate contracts inside, but I don’t know the combination.”

Roan freezes. Alternate contracts?

“What did you just say?”

Chillingly, Ontari begins to laugh, and Roan scoots away from her, thrown.

She stares him down. “God, you seriously still don’t get it, do you,” she muses, and it isn’t a question. “Your mom doesn’t trust you, Roan. You really think she’s giving you control on that Franco deal? I _watched_ her meet with her lawyers to set something up behind your back. Probably isn’t the first time, either.”

Roan’s blood runs cold, and he knows with full certainty that Ontari is telling the truth. For months, he was so paranoid about the threat Ontari posed to his position that he barely scrutinized his mother at all, but it all makes too much sense. Their relationship is still… delicate, after everything. Why he trusted her in the first place, he truly has no clue. Displaced desire for her acceptance, even now, perhaps. The thought disgusts him.

“Fuck,” he mutters, mostly to himself, but Ontari snorts.

“Pretty much,” she nods, closing her eyes. “And they’re definitely gonna kill us, because there is just no way you know the combination to that safe, not if I don’t.”

Roan scowls at that. Ontari is an asshole.

He grits his teeth and starts thinking, concentrating past his headache and the cramp forming in his back, considering every interaction he’s had with his mother in the recent past. Ontari is wrong, she has to be wrong: if Nia really wanted to hide that safe from him, to hide the fact that she was going behind his back, she wouldn’t have left it in her office, and she _certainly_ wouldn’t have told Ontari about it. This is another test, another challenge. It has to be.

“Then I guess we’re going to die,” Roan exhales, leaning back into the wall and crossing his ankles. From the corner of his eye, he can see Ontari scowling. That clearly wasn’t the answer she was expecting, but he isn’t about to show his hand. There’s a brief moment where this all feels absolutely crazy, to be holding onto this weird competition thing between him and Ontari under such extreme circumstances, but if they ever get out of this it’s going to matter how he responds and reacts, right now. It’s not clear if their kidnappers are after Roan’s secrets, his mother's, or Lexa Franco’s, but it doesn’t really matter, it would all be fucked if anyone else got their hands on those documents.

“Come up with something,” Ontari snarls, but she seems deflated. “I’m not spending my final moments with _you_.”

Roan snorts. Wouldn’t that be quite the ending to their relationship. His mother gets them both killed after all, in a roundabout way. He closes his eyes, keeps thinking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Murphy/Ontari is fine, it's a dream so the booboos are just illusions. Forgeries, if you will.
> 
> I went with pretty minimal explanation for most of the dream share shit, sort of assuming you have canon knowledge that you might not have because this text doesn't have those expository beats Inception does, so if anything is unclear let me know and I can tinker with it. Keep forgetting that not everyone is obsessed with Inception and thus does not have encyclopedic knowledge of its universe..... oops.
> 
> Thank you again for reading!!


	7. standing at attention

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The dance floor is congested, so it takes longer than he wants to squeeze through, taking care not to stumble on the uneven ground where he ducks around people. It’s frustrating in the way only a crowd in a dream can be when you’re trying to hurry, exacerbated by unexpected gravity shifts from the swerving van Bellamy is asleep in. A tall, handsome man checks Bellamy roughly in the shoulder, knocking him back a little and turning him to see Clarke’s hand clamped on Roan’s wrist, wearing the determined, knowing look she wears when she wants to convince someone to trust her. The glasses hanging above the bar rattle, and he can feel the floor shift. Shit, she told him. The projections are responding.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone!! This is the first nightclub dream chapter!! Woo!! Hope you all enjoy, I have a wee little playlist for this level I might share next chapter, we shall see.
> 
> Trigger warnings for this chapter include references to sexual assault and Murphy having a panic attack about it. Yes, this is *that* chapter. Please take care of yourselves if this is a sensitive topic for you, and of course if there's anything I missed that you need tagged please let me know, your safety is my priority.
> 
> Thank you all so so much for reading, please let me know what you think in the comments!!!

Bellamy is following Clarke into the room with Roan and Murphy in it this time, both of their masks on. Raven and Monty are defending the door with rifles, because Roan’s projections have found them by now. Lexa is already in the van, lovingly buckled in by Clarke to wait for the rest of them to join her. In this dream, she doesn’t have long to live at all, and she looks ghastly. Bellamy can hardly look at her.

He shakes the haunting image of Lexa dying from his head, puts himself back in the moment. Roan and Murphy both jump when they enter, though it doesn’t seem like they were talking. Hm. Not ideal.

Clarke looks powerful and dangerous, with her mask and her gun and her leather jacket. She strides straight over to them and without hesitating lifts her gun to Murphy’s head. Next to her, Bellamy pulls out a burner cell phone, dials the number and puts it in Clarke’s unoccupied hand. She nods in thanks, then crouches in front of Roan, meeting his eyes.

“I have two men standing in your mother’s office right now, in front of her safe,” she explains, voice low and silky. Sharply, she places the phone to Roan’s cheek. “Combination, now.”

Roan’s eyes flick between Clarke, Murphy, and Clarke’s gun, chest heaving. “I-I don’t know, I don’t know it.”

Clarke leans forward and presses her gun into Murphy’s temple, and he gives a convincing whimper. “One more chance,” Clarke threatens, still holding out the phone.

Roan shakes his head, getting desperate. “Please stop, I don’t know—”

They don’t have time for this. Clarke huffs in frustration, shoving Murphy away and jamming her pistol under Roan’s chin with force. “First six numbers that come to your head, right now.”

“I- Fuck, I-“

“I said right now!” Clarke bellows, unlike her.

Roan’s jaw is clenched shut tight, entire body rigid with rage and fear. “Five, two, eight, four, nine, one,” he grits out slowly and deliberately, and even though there’s no way Roan knows the actual combination to the real-world safe, something about the way he says it leaves Bellamy with a strange feeling, like maybe he does know it. A spark of panic ignites in him and he wants to check his totem, but they’re kind of in the middle of something, and he's in Monty's dream. He knows that.

Clarke takes the phone back and listens to the big fat nothing on the other side, sniffing a laugh and standing up, shaking her head. “Gonna have to do better than that.”

She flips the phone shut and snaps her fingers, signaling for Bellamy to toss her one of the bags. He does, and Roan groans, leans away.

“Please, not the fucking bag,” he begs as Clarke yanks it down over his head. Just in case, she pulls one over Murphy’s head too, and cuts them both loose from the pipes, hands still tied together. Bellamy is standing by, ready to grab Roan’s arm and yank him to his feet, gun against his head.

“We’re going for a ride,” Bellamy says, and Roan shouts a desperate cry, thrashing in his hold. Murphy must have told him about driving into the river, then. That’s good.

They cross through the room quickly, almost at a jog, because by now the gunshots outside sound much, much closer. Monty is in the van already, knuckles white where they grip the wheel, and Bellamy frowns.

“Get them inside,” Clarke barks at him, rushing over to join Raven where she is shooting out the garage door.

He swings the door open and shoves Roan inside, Murphy leaning against the van next to him. Roan fights him a little, stops when Bellamy reminds him of his gun, then reaches into the seatback pocket for the dropper with the sedative in it. A few drops on the bag above his mouth, and Roan goes still.

Bellamy relaxes, just a bit, and reaches into the front seat to grip Monty’s shoulder. The chemist gives him a very earnest, shaky smile. “Good work, buddy,” Bellamy says, releasing him and climbing the rest of the way in. “Drive safe.”

Murphy yanks the bag from his head, huffing as Clarke and Raven rush back to the van to get in. “Did you have to shove me so much?” he asks Clarke as he climbs in as well, almost tripping on the PASIV to join Bellamy in the backseat behind Roan.

Clarke sighs. “Sorry,” she mutters, scooching in next to Bellamy and behind Lexa, reaching over the seat to check her pulse. Murphy looks at Bellamy, and Bellamy can see he’s embarrassed. Clarke isn’t being cruel; she’s just scared.

A burst of gunshots rings out. They have to move.

“Everyone attach your IV lines,” Monty instructs, starting the engine. “And be careful down there, it’s going to be unstable as hell. I’ll try my best, but—”

Raven puts her hand on his arm. “You got this,” she says, settling back into her seat with the rest of them, ready to go in.

A bullet hits one of the support beams in the warehouse, sparks flying. They all flinch, and Monty stomps his foot on the gas pedal. The van fishtails for a second before shooting forward, and Monty reaches back to slam the button on the PASIV.

“Sweet dreams!”

* * *

Purple laser lights cut through the air, catching the pale specters of smoke and sweat hanging suspended above Bellamy’s head. Loud dance music pulsates through the space. He’s on the wall, but the room is filled with people, bodies undulating like an ocean. Quickly, he looks for the rest of the team in their starting positions; Raven is waiting in her Nest, the highest booth in the club, and the only place where you can see the entire room clearly.

The space is separated into several levels by stairs, ramps, and ladders, winding and folding on each other in a way that feels confusing, labyrinthine. It’s Bellamy’s level, so he knows it backward and forward, something that actually helps him feel better. He’ll need every advantage he has against Roan’s projections.

The room shakes, just a little. Is it the music, or something happening up above?

Bellamy crosses the club to Raven, weaving through the… colorful crowd carefully and quickly, climbing the ladder in the back of Raven’s booth to slide into the seat next to her. Dancers of all shapes and sizes are spinning on poles on satellite stages throughout the room, and Bellamy smirks, realizing something.

“It’s a gay club?” he shouts, leaning into Raven so she can hear him over the thumping music. Raven laughs, shakes her loose hair over her shoulders. She looks gorgeous in a thin-strapped silk tank top, her knee brace obscured beneath suave wide-leg trousers. The look shows off her muscular arms.

“You gave me the notes on Roan,” she reminds him, scanning the room. “Not my fault if you weren’t paying attention.”

Bellamy shakes his head and spies Clarke’s blonde head bobbing through the crowd, headed to where Roan is seated at one of the bars, looking quite dejected over a bright red drink.

“There goes Dr. Charles,” Bellamy says, nodding to where Clarke is sliding into the stool next to Roan, leaning in to speak to him.

Lexa is near them, and she locks eyes with Bellamy. Clarke talked to her for a long time while Murphy was working on Roan and the combination, so she’s prepared for the change of plans. It feels good to see her looking alive again. She looks beautiful, too. They all do.

The thought makes him remember Murphy, and he scans the crowd again, searching for his sharp eyes. He spies Ontari in her golden dress, slipping into the all-gender restroom, but that wouldn’t be Murphy; he’s himself, on this level. That’s Roan’s projection. Bellamy frowns. Where is he? He looks again, and then again.

“Where’s Murphy?” he shouts into Raven’s ear, seeking another pair of eyes.

Raven looks out into the club, searching as well. “I don’t know, I don’t see him.”

Fear alights in Bellamy, wild like a forest fire. They are all in danger, especially with Clarke telling Roan right now that he’s asleep. The second he realizes, their time is halved, and the dream loses even more stability. Bellamy wants his eyes on Murphy, when that happens, and he can’t fucking find him.

“I’m gonna go look for him,” Bellamy announces to Raven, already moving. “Don’t wait for me; get everyone else downstairs with Roan.”

Raven nods, brows drawn tightly together. “Be careful,” she says, grabbing his hand to give it a tight squeeze before he slips the rest of the way down the ladder.

There are a few places he can search; the narrow basement hallway leading to the small private lounge they’re going to the next dream in, the smoking alley Raven added in case they needed a hasty exit, the bathroom. Bathroom is closest, right now, and he’s nervous about seeing Ontari walk in there.

Originally, Murphy had this intricate plan of illusion and deception, disguising himself as both Roan and Ontari to draw them toward each other, back into conflict where Murphy could be a witness, see how Roan’s subconscious was characterizing her and if the suggestion a layer up had taken. Now, Ontari is a loose variable, an asset out of their control and unaccounted for in this plan, and he doesn’t know where Murphy is. He does know where Ontari is.

The dance floor is congested, so it takes longer than he wants to squeeze through, taking care not to stumble on the uneven ground where he ducks around people. It’s frustrating in the way only a crowd in a dream can be when you’re trying to hurry, exacerbated by unexpected gravity shifts from the swerving van Bellamy is asleep in. A tall, handsome man checks Bellamy roughly in the shoulder, knocking him back a little and turning him to see Clarke’s hand clamped on Roan’s wrist, wearing the determined, knowing look she wears when she wants to convince someone to trust her. The glasses hanging above the bar rattle, and he can feel the floor shift. Shit, she told him. The projections are responding.

Bellamy checks the Nest; Raven is gone, thankfully, and when he looks, Lexa is also no longer standing where she was before. Good. That means Clarke can focus on Roan, and Bellamy can focus on Murphy. He rights himself and continues pushing forward, trying not to make eye contact with anyone. They’ll calm back down in a second, but the clock is ticking on when the militarized projections will show up, which is the real danger here.

Finally, he makes it to the bathroom, only to find a line out front, the door locked. No, _no_. Frustrated, he bangs his fist on the door, presses his ear to the thin wood and strains to listen above the music. He hears sounds of a struggle.

“Back up,” he bellows to the suspicious and antsy projections gathered outside the door, pulling his gun from his waistband. “I’m security here.”

He doesn’t care if they believe it, wastes no time in kicking at the door until it buckles, swinging open with a slam.

There, face pressed into the broken mirror, is Murphy, Ontari above him with her hands at his throat. Blood is trickling from the glass cutting into Murphy’s face.

Bellamy shoots Ontari in the foot without blinking and she screams, releasing Murphy and dropping to the floor like a bag of sand, clutching her wounded limb. It makes sense that she would be Roan’s most aggressive projection, that it would be her that responds first and most violently to this upheaval. Still… this is Roan’s projection of her? What the hell must she be like in person?

Unfortunately, to sell the next step of their plan, they need her alive, so Bellamy can’t put one in her fucking skull and end it right here. She doesn’t have to be awake, though. Bellamy cracks her across the face with his gun, and she goes silent. He stows his gun.

Murphy slumps against the counter, then collapses altogether, huge heaving sobs shaking his entire body. Bellamy surges forward to catch him, wraps him up in his arms and pulls Murphy into his lap, running his hand over his hair soothingly.

“Hey, hey,” he says, rocking Murphy a little. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you, Murphy.”

Murphy sobs so hard it sounds like he might vomit, and dread rings up and down Bellamy’s bones like a church bell. He has never, ever seen Murphy like this. He’s taking these heaving breaths, clearly trying to calm down, but he can’t. His skinny fingers scrabble at Bellamy’s dark shirt, pulling desperately at the fabric. Tipping his head back, he takes one last deep breath, awful little pained noises leaving him.

“She touched me,” Murphy rasps, voice sounding painful and wet. “When I was her intern. She… when we were alone together, she, ugh, fuck,” he coughs, brings his forehead forward to press it into Bellamy’s shoulder.

Bellamy is confused, at first. “Touched you?” he asks before he can think better of it, then, oh. Oh, shit. “God, Murphy, I’m sorry.”

Murphy sobs again at Bellamy holding him closer, shakes his head limply. “We don’t have time for this.”

Bellamy’s stomach rolls, because he’s right. The regular projections nearby scattered when he started shooting, but Ontari just tried to kill Murphy. Roan’s army is coming, and they’ll be there very soon. Murphy needs help, damn it, and there’s no time.

“Can you stand?” Bellamy asks, because they both know what’s at stake here. Murphy swallows slow, again looking like he might be sick, but nods vigorously, moves to rise on his own. He doesn’t get far before Bellamy catches him in his arms to help him, pulling them to their feet together.

They stand there for a moment, holding each other. It’s almost like a hug. Murphy sniffles, leans his cheek on Bellamy’s chest, and looks down at Ontari, who is now quietly groaning on the ground.

“What do we do with her?” Murphy asks, jerking forward to kick her in the shin, out of Bellamy’s grasp. He seems a little more stable, now. Bellamy doesn’t stop him.

He sighs. “We have to bring her to the lounge,” Bellamy explains, sorry for every word. “Roan has to think we’re entering her subconscious.”

Murphy laughs, ugly, and runs trembling hands over his face. “Okay. And that’ll work? Look at what you did to her foot, Bellamy.”

“It’ll work,” Bellamy snaps, clenching his fists. He can’t hear it, right now. “We just need to get her there without anyone seeing.”

Even if she weren’t bleeding from the foot, an unconscious Ontari draped between Bellamy and Murphy while they carry her through a night club isn’t the best way to avoid drawing attention. Bellamy closes his eyes tight, conjures the colorful charts and maps Raven made for them.

Murphy sighs. “Alright,” he mumbles, moving to take Ontari’s feet, ready to carry her like they keep having to carry people.

“Stop!” Bellamy says, rushing forward to put his hand on Murphy’s chest, push him away from her. He doesn’t want Murphy to have to touch her ever, ever again. “I’ll carry her. We’ll get to the basement through the smoking alley.”

They can sneak close to the back wall, that way, try to mesh with the crowd until they make it to the door. Murphy nods, sniffs, wipes at his eyes with a slap. Jesus, he had to _become_ her, after what happened between them. This recontextualizes everything from the past few days: Murphy’s reaction to Bellamy kissing him, the way he tore into the loft after his internship was over. He told Bellamy he wasn’t okay. Bellamy brought him on this job, he put Murphy in Ontari's path. Now it’s Bellamy that feels sick, and for a second he has to shut his eyes and clench his jaw shut or he really will puke, but he has to put that impulse somewhere else. They have to go.

He nods, centering himself, then bends to scoop Ontari into his arms, slinging her over his shoulder like she’s just passed out drunk.

Bellamy stops, looks at Murphy. “Where’s your gun?”

Murphy’s eyes glimmer with something, and he blinks, stunned. “It’s, I- I don’t know, on the ground somewhere.”

“Here,” Bellamy says, balancing Ontari for a second to retrieve his pistol from his waistband, offering it to Murphy. “Take mine. I trust you.”

Murphy stares at the gun in his hands, his face crumpling in anguish for a second, but he nods with a sharp exhale through his nose, locking it down. “Let’s move.”

The club shakes and shifts again, this time knocking them both off balance. Bellamy stumbles into the wall, catching himself from falling just barely, Murphy right beside him.

“Monty?” he asks, and Bellamy nods. He swallows the lump in his throat. Fuck, this is going to be hard. Monty, god bless him, is under heavy fire right now. He could be the best driver in the world and Bellamy would still experience disruption in the dream.

The projections are getting restless. Bellamy keeps his head down again as they cling to the wall, mercifully carving their way through the room to the exit pretty fast. They burst out onto the street just in time for a blacked out SUV to pull up at the mouth of the alley, kill their lights. Bellamy and Murphy scurry through the dazed smoking crowd to the back entrance to the stairwell as men in suits and earpieces pour out of the car, and Bellamy grunts, shifts Ontari up a little higher in his arms. Roan’s security is here.

“Lock it behind us,” he instructs Murphy quietly as he yanks the door open. Hopefully they weren’t seen, and the first wave of trained projections will go in through the front entrance, but better to be safe.

Like the dance floor above, the basement hallway is bathed in purple light, only it’s cooler and dimmer down here, more blue than pink. The bass of the music above rattles the framed posters hanging on the walls, but the basement is quiet. Raven is standing outside the lounge, waiting for them. She waves them inside.

When they enter, Roan spins around in alarm. “Who’s this?” his eyes fall to Ontari’s mangled foot, bug out huge. “What the fuck happened?”

“Roan,” Clarke says, taking him by both forearms and stepping in front of him, forcing him to look at her. “She was trying to break into your mind,” she explains quickly, trying to soothe him. How he responds to this depends on how well Clarke has convinced him they’re on his side.

Bellamy rests Ontari on one of the black velvet benches in the lounge, still grumbling softly and only semi-conscious. He did shoot her, and then hit her pretty hard. He tries to focus on what he’s doing instead of Roan just _staring_ at him, straightens Ontari out a bit then goes to Murphy, checks the wound on his face. Tense. Murphy is too, he can tell.

“She do that to you?” Roan asks him gruffly, pointing at Ontari.

Murphy takes a breath, swallows, nods. “Yeah.”

Roan sighs, pulls his arms from Clarke’s grip to place them on his own hips. An unnamable energy is rolling off of him in waves, and like he can’t stay still, he brings one hand to grip the bridge of his nose, frustrated. Around them, the lounge is ready to go, PASIV on a small table in the middle of the room, benches gathered around it. Raven and Lexa are sitting on their benches, waiting, but Lexa is pale, holding her stomach. There might be blood, under her hand. They have to hurry.

“Son of a bitch,” Roan mutters to himself, then draws his hand away. “I’m sorry,” he says to Murphy, gesturing once more to Ontari, then looks at Clarke. “Let’s do this.”

Clarke’s eyes flutter closed and the barest smile of relief flashes over her face before a more confident, reassuring expression takes its place. “Let me help you with your IV.”

Bellamy and Murphy release their held breath at the same time, then look at each other. The side of Murphy’s face is bloody, and his eyes are red-rimmed from crying. Bellamy takes his hand gently, pulls him over to the benches to go under. He’s running his thumb across the back of his hand, over and over.

Murphy tries to grab his IV line, but Bellamy stops him, taking it from his shaky hands. _Let me help you_ , Bellamy silently begs him, and Murphy just nods, lying down and giving Bellamy his arm. He inserts the IV and brushes the bloody, sweaty hair from Murphy’s forehead.

“Don’t have too much fun without me,” Murphy teases lightly, eyes already growing heavy from the sedative.

Bellamy smiles, more of a wince. God, he’s so fucking worried about him. “Look, she might be dangerous on the next level, too,” he whispers quickly, leaning in close. “Especially since this is your dream. Promise me you’ll be careful, that you’ll trust Clarke.”

Murphy nods, drowsy. “I trust you,” he murmurs, staring into Bellamy’s eyes.

Bellamy smiles for real, this time. “Go to sleep, Murphy,” he says, pressing the button on the PASIV.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> R O A N G A Y
> 
> Clarke attaches Ontari's IV line too, don't think about it too hard. 
> 
> Thank you again for reading, I appreciate you all very much!


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